The Great Ruck Debate.

[kruddler]

Just went through my email and found the spreadsheet again.

A couple of quick snippets keeping in mind this was from June last year. (averages)
Player (team) - HO - HTA - HOS - +/-
Witts (G.C.) - 41 - 12.9 - 8 - +4.9
Darcy (fre) - 39 - 11 - 9.2 - +1.8
Nankervis (ric) - 31 - 9 - 6.6 - +2.4
Pittonet (car) - 29 - 10.6 - 4.9 - +5.6
Williams (wc) - 26 - 6.5 - 6.0 - +0.5
Lycett (PA) - 21 - 6.5 - 5.6 - +0.9
Grundy (col) - 21 - 7.5 - 3.8 - +3.7
Gawn (mel) - 20 - 6.1 - 4.7 - +1.4
Ladhams (syd) - 20 - 4.7 - 4.3 - +0.4
Lynch (haw) - 19 - 1.0 - 3.0 - -2.0 **
DeKoning (car) - 17 - 5.3 - 3.3 - +2.0


** this was from his one and only game, but 3x more likely to hit it to the opposition than his own team. Is this someone you want to get more hitouts from?? You'd rather him lose!

Now what this doesn't show because i CBF going through it all again is how likely a player is to get the hitout at all based on the ruck contests attended.
You might get every 2nd hitout. Or you might only get 1 in 10. Obviously that changes the effectiveness of that ruck as well.

The last number in all of that is key though.
If you ruck gets his hand on the ball, what is the likleyhood it will benefit your team compared to the opposition. Hitouts to advantage minus hitouts sharked = comparitive skill of a ruck in the ruck contest

[DJC]

I tend to agree Baggers. If we had 2 Tom De Konings, would this discussion be occurring? Perhaps the issue is a slow, more lumbering type ruckman as you suggest, rather than 2 ruckmen per se ? It's hard to know from the outside. I'd like to see Pittonet played as a ruck plus marking target around the ground and De Koning as a big bodied mid plus extra forward target, just to see how it goes. Against North would be as good a time as any IMO.

The problem with that scenario is Pitto’s inability to take marks.  If he was a marking ruckman, we wouldn’t be having this debate and Pitto and Tom would be dominating opposition rucks.

[kruddler]

The problem with that scenario is Pitto’s inability to take marks.  If he was a marking ruckman, we wouldn’t be having this debate and Pitto and Tom would be dominating opposition rucks.

Inability is a bit harsh.

Keeping in mind TDK has played games as a key forward and been targetted a lot more than Pitto as a result. Other 'sole ruck types'

Average marks 2024
Pitto - 1.38
TDK - 3.44

Contested marks average 2024
Pitto - 0.63
TDK - 0.88

As a comparison some other rucks averages 2024...
Player - avg Ms - avg CMs)
Darcy - 1.33 -  0.33
Grundy - 2.41 - 0.59
Gawn - 5.25 - 1.81
Witts - 2.18 - 0.55
Nankervis - 3.06 - 0.94
Goldstein - 1.92 - 0.46

[PaulP]

The problem with that scenario is Pitto’s inability to take marks.  If he was a marking ruckman, we wouldn’t be having this debate and Pitto and Tom would be dominating opposition rucks.

It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Pittonet. Will he simply be a back up for De Koning, in which case will he want to stay, or go elsewhere ? The ideal of course would be for the two of them to develop into a winning combination, but at this moment that still looks like a work in progress.

[LP]

The problem with that scenario is Pitto’s inability to take marks.  If he was a marking ruckman, we wouldn’t be having this debate and Pitto and Tom would be dominating opposition rucks.

We don't use them the same, Pitto tends to play a kick behind play, TDK tends to push forward to become a target, I'd rate Pitto with higher D50 marking reliability than TDK. Pitto isn't going to take the lead-up marks on the wing or HBF like TDK and Harry, not just because he isn't as mobile, but also because he isn't in that part of the ground.

In terms of effective midfield clearances, Pitto and TDK are almost inseparable, Pitto has taken his stoppage and clearance work to another level this year but fans do not give him credit for a variety of reasons. He deserves some, he is better than they credit him.

[Lods]

...The ideal of course would be for the two of them to develop into a winning combination, but at this moment that still looks like a work in progress.

They won't develop into a winning combination if we only play one at a time.
TDK seems to go to another level when he's the solo ruck.
He tends to go missing to some extent when he plays with Pittonet.

I'm not sure why that is, or what's the solution.
They tend to play 'wide' of each other,taking the rucks at different times.
Perhaps something that (silly as it sounds) could be tried is to have them play closer together.
Talking to one another
Tom has the follow up ability to virtually be another midfielder at the contest.

Imagine a ruck contest where the opposition has Tom on one side and Marc on the other and he has no idea which one is going to nominate  

[LP]

Tom has the follow up ability to virtually be another midfielder at the contest.

Prior to their ruck crisis the Handbaggers were already doing this with SDK, it's the very same they were doing with Blicavs when Stanley was rucking. I can't specifically recall, but it might have even been the case that back in Rnd 13 Blicavs and SDK reversed roles at various times against us, with Blicavs taking the ruck and SDK standing Cripps.

I'd love to see TDK on a wing at times as well, he's more than capable of run downs, and yet he'd be an A-grade option to exit D50 allowing BigH and Charlie to stay fresh.

Of course, you still need a Plan B, this isn't an "All In" scenario that opponents of the 2 rucks like to paint it as, ironically the scenario closest to "All In" is the solo ruck option.

[DJC]

Inability is a bit harsh.

Keeping in mind TDK has played games as a key forward and been targetted a lot more than Pitto as a result. Other 'sole ruck types'

Average marks 2024
Pitto - 1.38
TDK - 3.44

Contested marks average 2024
Pitto - 0.63
TDK - 0.88

As a comparison some other rucks averages 2024...
Player - avg Ms - avg CMs)
Darcy - 1.33 -  0.33
Grundy - 2.41 - 0.59
Gawn - 5.25 - 1.81
Witts - 2.18 - 0.55
Nankervis - 3.06 - 0.94
Goldstein - 1.92 - 0.46

A good example of how averages can be misleading. The median (midpoint of the data set) and mode (most frequent result) are more informative:

Median: Pitto = 1.5, Tom = 4

Mode: Pitto = 2, Tom = 5

The raw data is:

Pitto: 0 marks per game X 2, 1 mark X 2, 2 marks X 3 and 3 marks X 1

Tom: 0 marks per game X 0, 1 mark per game X 3, 2 marks X 3, 3 marks X 1, 4 marks X 3, 5 marks X 5 and 6 marks X 1

When we have played Pitto and Tom, the latter has played limited minutes as a key forward and he isn't targeted anywhere near as often as Charlie, Harry and Owies.  Tom also rarely gets involved in transferring play and doesn't rack up meaningless uncontested marks. 

[kruddler]

A good example of how averages can be misleading. The median (midpoint of the data set) and mode (most frequent result) are more informative:

Median: Pitto = 1.5, Tom = 4

Mode: Pitto = 2, Tom = 5

The raw data is:

Pitto: 0 marks per game X 2, 1 mark X 2, 2 marks X 3 and 3 marks X 1

Tom: 0 marks per game X 0, 1 mark per game X 3, 2 marks X 3, 3 marks X 1, 4 marks X 3, 5 marks X 5 and 6 marks X 1

When we have played Pitto and Tom, the latter has played limited minutes as a key forward and he isn't targeted anywhere near as often as Charlie, Harry and Owies.  Tom also rarely gets involved in transferring play and doesn't rack up meaningless uncontested marks.

When we play both TOMs minutes has suffered?
Go back and check your data on that one.
If you want to go head to head, its hard for the reasons we've both outlined.
So thats why i included some other of the best 'solo' rucks for comparison.
For someone with an inability to take a mark, he stacks up pretty well with some of the best.
I suggest if you normalise that out, you'll find that he is even better than those averages suggest.

All i'm saying is you are selling Pittonet short.

[madbluboy]

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