The Great Ruck Debate.

[kruddler]

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.

Are you arguing with me or trying to summarise everything i've been saying over the years?

I've done analysis on TOG% for both before.

Short version equates to basically this.
In a game where you have 2 genuine rucks, a ruck is taking up a spot on the bench for a full quarter MORE than if you have 1 ruck.
So that means there is 1/4 worth of time LESS rotation for others to share. (30 minutes more time others play apread across them).

When you go one step further and realise that an extra small would take place of the ruck on top of that (in the 1 ruck model) you basically get a whole extra player/rotation to add to that, so basically 75% game time from the extra mid.

So you have an extra mid for the whole game more rotation wise
vs
A genuine ruck over a backup ruck for 25% of the game and largely hiding them for the other 75% or hoping they can fit in.

....and people also try and debate how pointless the ruck stats are.....but still want the 2nd ruck over an additional mid.