The Great Ruck Debate.

[DJC]

I'm not having this debate with you.
I've ran the figures and that was the outcome.

You can cherry pick a couple games and show whatever you like. Do it over seasons (and eliminate games where someone was injured and/or subbed out) and there is a clear pattern

Its on this site somewhere if you care to look.

Its only a small part of the debate anyway. Their ineffectiveness around the ground, compared to a mid alternative, and the TOG shows how much time on bench they are hogging AND how much of the game we are trying to hide them away somewhere else as well.

So we were hiding away Owies, Fogarty, Boyd, Ollie Hollands, Cerra and Walsh against the Bulldogs?

They all spent around the same amount of time on the bench as De Koning against the Bulldogs.

Against the Giants, De Koning had 78% TOG (a little more than he did against the Bulldogs with Pitto in the team).  Cerra, E Hollands, McGovern, Saad, Fogarty, Cowan, Williams and Cottrell all had the same or less TOG.

The thing is, when you have 22 players rotating through 18 places on the field, several will spend at least 25% of the game on the bench.  It really doesn't matter if they're ruckmen, midfielders, small forwards or half back flankers. That's particularly the case when one of your ruckmen is racking up possessions, getting clearances and taking marks ... and that brings us back to Pitto's limitations.

For interest's sake, in their win over the Swans, Sean Darcy had 82% TOG and Luke Darcy had 83%, exactly the same as McLean and Grundy.