(10-09-2023, 01:17 AM)laj date Wrote:Flags have been won in many different ways. 2017 Richmond won with one key forward and a small forward line, then in 2019 they won with Lynch, Riewoldt, Nankervis and Soldo. 2020 they did it with one ruck and a pinch-hitter. 2018 the Eagles won with Vardy, Lycett, Kennedy and Darling, Melbourne won with Gawn, Jackson, McDonald and Brown, 2022, Jackson was very proficient forward. 2022 Geelong went with Stanley, a part-timer ruck in Blicavs and as well as Hawkins and Cameron. Looks like you can win it with many different combinations.Across that timeframe the rules have changed multiple times, as has the way the umpires are directed to interpret them!
A good example is after our game against the Handbaggers early this season, Scott bitched and moaned about his poor poor injured ruck and damaged Mid being beaten up by the high jumping TDK raising his knee and not being penalised. In the following weeks, TDK was almost umpired out of the game, something we should have been whispering in SDKs ear as a reminder about the behaviour of his coach! It was Scott's choice to play an injured/recovering ruck and his premier midfielder in the ruck, why should anyone else be penalised. He put Blicavs and Stanley to the sword to save Cameron, Hawkins and others.
No official rule was changed, but the way the game was played and umpired changed after that weekend!
We'd get no sympathy if we stupidly played Harry or Cripps in the ruck and a Nankervis or Darcy type smashed them up, yet that is what some fans want! To me it's stupidity to put premium players at greater physical risk, and worse still to toy with their form by playing them out of position just to create a spot for some other piecewise players.
That sort of thing makes it very hard to compare seasons and tactics but it does tell us one thing, and that is anyone who thinks they have the right way or the only solution is surely kidding themselves!
"Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck ....... Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck"