The Great Ruck Debate.

[DJC]

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.

Tom's time on the ground doesn't fluctuate that much, regardless of whether he's rucking solo or in tandem with Pitto, and it generally hovers between 78-80%.  His lowest was 68% against the Swans when Pitto had 78%.  He had 80% TOG against the Giants in round 6 and Pitto had 68%.  Pitto's time on the ground is less and fluctuates quite a bit; 50-78%.

It's not so much time on the ground that matters when playing two ruckmen, it's the impact they have when "resting".  When Tom is is playing as a tall forward, he gets up the ground like Harry does, impacts contests and takes some ruck contests, leaving Pitto behind the ball.  When Pitto is "resting", he's more likely to be on the pine because he isn't able to impact contests to the same extent as Tom.

The crux of the two rucks scenario is having two ruckmen who are complementary and can have an impact when not rucking.  We've had a couple of games this season where our two rucks worked very well and a couple where one or the other didn't do much.  Melbourne couldn't get it to work when they had arguably the two best ruckmen in the competition in their 22 but they weren't all that complementary.  Our two are very much a work in progress and it's getting more impact from Pitto when he's not in ruck contests that needs more work.