TOPIC:

I noticed in the WP v Peel game that the ruck hit outs were Peel 78 to WP 29. With Griffin and Apeness who are AFL grade ruckmen, one would assume, Peel controlled the game and had a easy win. But that's not the case!

So what statement/s is true:

Are Ruck hit outs stats are over rated.

Peel ruckman have no idea on how to ruck to their players.

Peel players don't know how to rove to their ruck taps.

WP dominated stoppages by reading Peel's ruck taps better.

Stats are incorrect.

What do you think?

Id say anyone or anything that wears a Peel jumper is rendered useless.

Even having a list made 90% up of AFL players, they are still nothing. I think you could put Hawthorn in Peel jumpers and they would lose.

Jimmy Two Times wrote: I noticed in the WP v Peel game that the ruck hit outs were Peel 78 to WP 29. With Griffin and Apeness who are AFL grade ruckmen, one would assume, Peel controlled the game and had a easy win. But that's not the case!

So what statement/s is true:

Are Ruck hit outs stats are over rated.

Peel ruckman have no idea on how to ruck to their players.

Peel players don't know how to rove to their ruck taps.

WP dominated stoppages by reading Peel's ruck taps better.

Stats are incorrect.

What do you think?

Jimmy you are spot on.. I was at the game and saw Chris win a lot of hit outs from the centre and at stoppages... I was very surprised when I saw the stats.
Definately something wrong there unless it was Peel.Docker Guy doing the stats??? LOL
Actually it wouldnt surprise me as the Dockers most probably provide the Statistician

Oh well we cant look at the video as the only video is the one the Dockers took with their camera at the southern end of the ground.

It's long been a strategy to try reading & stealing crumbs off of opposition ruck dominance (or a particularly dominant ruckman) sometimes it works & sometimes it doesn't

Hit outs aren't always to advantage. Eg EP v SD on the weekend. Johnson monstered the SD rucks on the weekend and set the tone in middle of ground by immediately having opposition rucks on back foot looking for ways to compete with his size and experience. 5-6 times in first half both rucks ended up lying on their butts before the ball even came down from bounce so not sure how stats could be given for hit out there but they still hand em out. Faulkner is usually almost genius working from both ruckman's taps but struggled to get first hands on ball this weekend because the ball couldn't be read from hands of more experienced ruck EP rucks. Stats were 40 -24 in EP favour which is a reflection of McGuinness / Johnson size advantage but on the day it was the tone these 2 set around the stoppages that was the difference. I would never look at hit out stats but rather clearance numbers to see how effective the rucks have been.

Agree entirely DW. Aaron Sandilands is a good example when he went through a bad period and the majority of his HO were to the opposition. Not entirely his fault as the opposition obviously knew his tactics and could read him like a book.

Found an interesting article on the subject

www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/afl-ruckm...-20140501-zr2f7.html

That said in part

Matthews

"They [Dockers] lose the clearances every week," Matthews said recently on 3AW. "Hitouts are useless, it's only what they contribute to the clearance, running the ball away from the pack.

"So I'm going to make a statement: Aaron Sandilands is therefore the most overrated player in footy, because hitouts is all he does."

And also Mark Thompson brought up the stats issue

Mark Thompson, in response to Matthews' recent comments on Sandilands, said he broadly agreed with the four-time premiership coach.

"I've never placed a great emphasis on ruckmen either," Thompson said. "But when you haven't got one and you're playing two young kids against someone like Sandilands it does make a difference."

One club's ruck coach said it was difficult to assess the value of ruckmen because people tried to distill their game to statistics that were inadequate and misleading, because the intangibles of a good ruck were unquantifiable.

the intangibles of a good ruck were unquantifiable


Couldn't put it any better myself other than to say the ruckman is both the most important player on the field and the least important which always allows his position to create a winning factor for one team at least.