XOH XOH Gossip Girl.
I wasn’t in before but I guess I am now.
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What is Preuss' contract situation?
Either way, we need a ruck - even if they're little more than a big body who can help mitigate the current disaster.
There has to be a couple of rucks not getting games at clubs, ala Pittonet last year who has been handy for Carltank.
On the opening post of the thread I detailed the work that needs to be done to get the list down to 38 and then 34 if you want to draft for 3 players (the minimum) and trade for one. Unless clubs are trading for some of our players it might be a bit harder this year than any other I can recall. On top of that we probably should be looking to add a ruckman as well
Has the list size cull been confirmed? It's being spoken about as a known fact in the media but haven't heard anything official.
GWS likely to be in the market too with Jacobs and Mumford maybe not going on
Preuss signed for 3 years? when he moved to Melbourne so has one more year remaining on that
Nankervis, Bellchambers, Hickey, Vardy might be available cheap
Would it be worth trying to get Rhys Stanley or Callum Sinclair (neither may be gettable)
or Archie Smith?
Convert a basketballer?
I can only see Bevo looking for an athletic type of ruckman, not a lumbering type. Someone that can play in multiple roles if necessary. Those guys don't grow on trees, and maybe we need to see who is available in the draft, or even rookie a young ruckman. MJP has always said, we should rookie a young ruck almost every year or have one being developed constantly.
The trouble is they take so long to develop.
Look its a funny one. He only averages 16 hit outs a game which is considered poor (rightly so) but he gets 5 hitouts to advantage per game which at 31% is very good. He had 23 with 9 to advantage against the Eagles. Hickey had 28 with 7.
He is close and getting better every month - still has lapses and really poor games.
RE: the contested ability, I honestly think its just not his style. He prefers to stay on his feet and can be very clean with his hands.
I actually hate the way that 90% of our team go in for the contested ball, leaves us extremely open to fast breaks and the amount of goals we concede where a ball spills out to a free player really annoys me.
Total numbers meaning we could have a reduced list by 5 to 7 players on what we started this season with.
So from 45 players this year having to drop to either 40 or 38 for next season.
All clubs need to get down even further from those numbers because they need to draft 3 players. If you sign a FA or trade a pick for a player you need to get down even lower. I can see players being redrafted by their own teams
Jason McCartney talked a bit about it today saying there will be a lot of clubs looking at players from other clubs that might get delisted.
There is no doubt he can more than match it versus the second/third tier type ruckmen in the competition (Essendon's Phillips for example whe he completely dominated and Hickey fits into this bucket) but I prefer not to measure him against them.
What I care about are his performances against top 8 sides. He was destroyed by Grundy, the Saints guys worked him over completely, big O gave him a bath against Brisbane etc.
Just picking up a ruck for the sake of it would be insanity. Any experienced addition in ruck stocks needs to fit in with the way we play and needs to actually add something apart from being a tall. Anyone we get needs to either be elite at getting first hands on the ball or give something else elite around the ground. Just plonking in an average ruck because he is tall is like playing a tall forward who can’t mark the ball, all it does is slow you down. Put me in the camp of getting creative and trying to establish a mobility advantage if we can’t get the right player.
We also need to consider the flexibility of any ruck option we get. English needs games so to me it means if we spend money, picks or a player to get quality in they must be able to play forward to have the ability to operate in tandem.
Tweet from Tom Brown
Quote:
List size discussion is heating up. @AFLPlayers haven’t finalised position yet. But some momentum and discussion around 40 + 2 today. It’s come up in discussion with clubs