Bruce - Ruck option Game over

[remboy]

My opinion is that playing Bruce in the ruck is a double negative. He isn't effective as a ruckman and I feel it's begatively impacting his form at FF.
If we're happy with a ruckman having less than 10 possessions and taking 1 mark a game we might as well play Holmes. At least he'll get 50 hitouts.
I think a hard call will have to be made at the end of the year as playing any two of our listed ruckmen will make us too slow and limit our rotations too much.

I tend to agree.. Not sure why we went for so many 'pure' ruckman..

Yep. With Hickey, Longer and Pierce on the list I'm not sure why we promoted Holmes. And if we teally wanted him on the list it should have been at the expense of one of the others.

[supersaints]

My opinion is that playing Bruce in the ruck is a double negative. He isn't effective as a ruckman and I feel it's begatively impacting his form at FF.
If we're happy with a ruckman having less than 10 possessions and taking 1 mark a game we might as well play Holmes. At least he'll get 50 hitouts.
I think a hard call will have to be made at the end of the year as playing any two of our listed ruckmen will make us too slow and limit our rotations too much.

I tend to agree.. Not sure why we went for so many 'pure' ruckman..

Yep. With Hickey, Longer and Pierce on the list I'm not sure why we promoted Holmes. And if we teally wanted him on the list it should have been at the expense of one of the others.

Don't think anybody goes out to recruit "pure" ruckmen. It just turns out that some just don't develop the around the ground skills as an effective marking player. You could get away with it with Sandilands who will likely have his best year ever, the height has it with no third man up .. That being said our stocks are very young and one of the taller bigger bodies may develop.. but the Bruce ruck certainly does us no favors.

[Impatient Sainter]

Would be a dream for Marshall but I cant see AR wanting another tall playing forward.

[Linton Lodger]

Yep the OP has got a point I think, we seem to get utterly smashed in clearances when Bruce relieves in the ruck. It was more of a problem against Geelong because Longer appeared to need more breaks than Hickey does.

[SaintPav]

It clearly hasn't worked for quite a while now.

Clearance & tap work ineffective and forward line suffers. Riewoldt forward when Bruce into the ruck doesn't do much for balance either.. This isn't a knock on Bruce, more a swing at coaching panel.

Time for Richardson to sort this out and come up with a solution. Mix it up. Maybe it's Marshall or Hickey has to play forward ruck with Longer?

If we had another decent backman, you could swing Carlisle into this role as he has the height.

Not a lot of options, time for change nonetheless.

Should have been sorted in the off season but have a feeling they were restricted with Carslile's suspension.

They don't want to kill him!!

[BigMart]

Carlisle won't play ruck, not what he wants, or what we got him for...

Bruce is not expected to be dominant in the centre, just give Longer/Hickey a breather and compete, perhaps get a few kicks around the ground?

Most of the 18 clubs have a pinch hit ruck for back up... simply can't afford to lose run, as it kills pressure capacity

Would you drop a runner for Hickey?

[1966]

I thought Longer was pretty good on Sunday and when he went off due to his hip we struggled. Bruce only capable of going in for a really short burst
It's the risk in only playing 1 ruck. Look what happened with Melbourne on Monday night.
Would hate to see what happens if we lost Longer at start of a game.
I'd play McCartin and give Bruce more time on the bench before he needs to go into the ruck. Works his bum off in forward line and then gets thrown in the ruck.

[Con Gorozidis]

Bruce and Membrey only have 14 goals for the season between them.
This is very concerning....
Orazio Fantasia has 14 by himself....

http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_goal_kickers

[kalsaint]

Which runner gets the chop if we bring in another tall?

We lose a rotation and our spread and pressure will drop a bit... will the inclusion of an extra tall outweigh that?

Possibly, if they play well??

Yes that's true but it depends on what the reason is for loss of effort late in games. If we aren't using our forwards correctly, that is, creating movement and solids leads by getting off their man then we are likely to see more turnovers. This usually means the team defence has to work very hard. Our accuracy hasn't been good this year. Forwards are rucking and double teamed or have their path blocked to any possible mark from clearances. Our kicking skills have never been good enough to pass the ball around quickly to provide leading opportunities. A ruckman down forward causes havoc at times.

In answer to your question, play one less small forward and stop recruiting this type of player. We have an abundance of small forwards that we didn't have when Milney was playing along side 2 or 3 tall forwards. I don't put blokes like Hamill and now Membrey in the tall forward category. Quality mids today are as tall as Membrey (188cm, ie Petracca is the same height). We should be focussing on recruiting these guys for the future.

[kalsaint]

It only worked ( sort of) before the new no third man up rule.. We we second in the league in 2016 for hit outs by third man up with 30.7% of our total hit outs won by third man.. mostly by Roo
intresingly 3rd man up was used against us on Hickey rarely

When Bruce goes into the ruck we get killed because no one can help him out against the bigger bodies, posters saying that five minutes a quarter makes no difference Have no idea, that's twenty minutes total were we get absolutely flogged, It's obvious

It's usually toward the end of the quarter when we are already running out of steam .. it hurts badly

If your going to run with one Ruckman have got to be like Sandilands or Gawn etc, they now give the on ballers an armchair ride. Sadly we only have Longer who's tank ain't great and is struggling around the ground.

I believe the Dogs will suffer as they were quite high in using Bont as third man up the same we we use Nick this is the year of the giant rucks, until the coaches work out how to curb their influence once more.

Yes I agree. Dogs retired big Will and bought a tall forward. Bont has more work this year. It will be interesting to see how they adapt and if this affects Bonts game or injury likelihood.
Bruce is often double teamed if he gets free from ruck role position down forward or alternatively his path is blocked to goal from any ruck contest. This makes his job tough and sets him up for failure and extra work against the bigger bodied rucks (as you say).

I have always been against 2 rucks but when you defence or offence is relatively small a second ruck is worth it now the 3rd man up rule is changed. It could make Bruce more effective again and if forward pressure presents opportunity the big ruck is just the bloke a licker is looking for closer to goal.

[kalsaint]

I wonder how Carlisle would go in the occasional ruck contest? Perhaps we could get Bruce to go down back then?

Yeah I thought about this too but see it as a plan C type option now. Carlisle can kick goals but big CHF's would outpoint Bruce at CHB if they get a start. Also I like the option of Bruce providing pressure down forward. With his ruck work this option is less workable.

[mad saint guy]

Bruce is not expected to be dominant in the centre, just give Longer/Hickey a breather and compete, perhaps get a few kicks around the ground?

Most of the 18 clubs have a pinch hit ruck for back up... simply can't afford to lose run, as it kills pressure capacity

Would you drop a runner for Hickey?

At least with Hickey he can ruck for 90% of the game. Longer played 76% TOG against Geelong which means Bruce was our ruckman for a quarter of the game. That's more than a breather. That means we're getting flogged in the ruck and we're down a key forward for 30 minutes; not to mention how taxing it is on Bruce and how it diminishes his output for the rest of the game. I wouldn't play Longer with another player who is predominantly a ruckman because Billy is absolutely useless around the ground, however I do think there could be merit to playing Pierce or Marshall along with Hickey. This probably doesn't work if you also bring McCartin back into the side, but we absolutely would have performed better against Geelong with Hickey and Marshall/Pierce instead of Longer and Long/Dunstan.

[BigMart]

Doesn't roo (our best fwd) go forward when Bruce is on the ball.

There is a reason we don't play two ruckmen

[Scollop]

Time to call for a Marshall?

The afl journos are stealing our boys' nickname

https://www.afl.com.au/news/2019-04-18/ ... nst-eagles

Interesting discussion from 2 years ago too.