The Great Ruck Debate.

[kruddler]

Much is the same for HtA, Pitto had almost his best game for the season, almost +50% on his season average.

But HtA doesn't mean much if the Dogs are deliberately surrendering the front position, and most of us have been making that point for a long long time.

Virtually all stats presented in isolation are diminished in value, presenting stats in isolation it's often just cherrypicking facts to suit a debate, in other words a deliberately introduced selection bias in the analysis, or a confirmation bias after the events.

Not the same thing at all. Not even close.

Cats used to give up the clearance, and get the ball back on the rebound. Those clearance numbers against them might have been inflated, sure, but they were accurate.
Same with HTA. They can vary based on your opponent and you might get the odd one that goes with/against you that is circumstantial, but as a whole, they are accurate.
Hitouts themselves have no 'accuracy' built in to the stat at all. It can help your team, or the opposition 100% of the time and there is no way to determine how based on that stat. So why do we keep it at all?

Its like keeping a stat on knocking the ball forward/out of a pack. Could go to you, could go to the opposition. What does that stat tell us? Nothing.
If you had a stat of knocking the ball forward/out of a pack to your teams advantage, then it at least gives you some idea of cohesion amongst your midfielders in a pack.