Originally Posted by
Mr Magoo
I think you need to consider that most sides dont want their more skilful players playing ruck for any length of time as it is so physically demanding on the player. The swans quite outwardly said that with Goodes.
Unless all of the teams were prepared to go this way , you may find over the longer term that you start losing the smaller guys to injury from playing in the ruck all the time and shorten their careers. While it may be okay to stick say Alliir in their temporarily , I would fear that over time he will start getting banged around and eventually succumb.
Lets face it , the problem at the moment is not the fact that we dont have a suitable ruckmen , in fact Tippett was showing until he got injured last year that this was an ideal role for him , the reality is that :
1. We have no in form ruckmen - even Naismith was not setting the world on fire prior to his injury.
2. Our gun midfielders are sadly out of form - they look slow and are either injured or not prepared to run two ways. Parker , Hannabery and Jack are all at the moment shadows of their former selves.
3. Our next gen of players have not really lifted to the elite level at this stage (albeit a lot of that due to injury).
4. Our backline is sadly missing an organiser like McVeigh or Rampe.
At the end of last season I think we would have all expected :
1. Alliir to continue on with his form from last year - he was that important that many including myself thought he could have made the difference for us in the GF. From what I have seen this year , Longmire is right on the mark with him.
2. Papley , Mills , Heeney even Rohan to go up to that next level - obviously injuries haven't helped but they have not gone to that level at this stage.
3. Further improvement from Cunningham, Marsh , Robinson - not happened (albeit again some injury)
If I look at the team at this point of time the only player I can think off that has actually gone up a level is Jones and the only other good story is that Reid is showing the type of capability we all thought he had.
The younger guys like Hayward, Florent , Newman and Fox should just be handy editions to the above and last year the new guys were just that . Thats not the case at the moment, we are hoping that they will provide the difference and thats just not going to happen.
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