Nick's Collingwood Bulletin Board

WarrenerraW wrote:Yes he did get beaten but you can't expect him to win every hit out. he was very competitive and serviceable around the ground. they were awful conditions tonight to be playing in and i thought he did reasonably well. he took a few marks, defended well, laid some tackles and did his best to try and win the ball from a contest. i believe he will improve with time. no need to rush jolly back in just yet. i would like to see wood assert himself more in a contest. by that i mean either crunch a pack and take a strong mark or defend. he needs more game time. as other posters have mentioned. jamar took time and so did jolly when he started out.

Sandilands had NFI when he first started out.

and we all know how he's turned out.

was actually pretty clean with his hands considering the conditions.. whilst he wasn't a gamebreaker, he was quite handy

Wood was again OK. Not great but not diabolical. The problem was he allowed a complete spud like Minson pick up 56 hitouts, 20-odd posessions and 100+ DT points. He has never done that in his whole career. Much to learn he still has.

Who is next in line after Wood? Not sure who our 3rd string ruck option is. Whatever the cost we must ensure Jolly doesn't break down at the pointy end.

Monco, I reckon you need to update your opinion of Minson. He has improved a lot over the last year or two, and has played a fair part in making life difficult for us in previous games. Why the Scraggers had him running around in the twos till this week, I have no idea.

Ignoring Brown, our third best ruckman is probably Chris Dawes. Yes! - but obviously he has other tasks. Cloke has taken hitout duty now and again too, and he's certainly built for it, but you wuildn't waste Trav in a ruck role. I suppose that leaves Keefe, though he is more of a giant KPP.

Minson may have won the hit outs but we won the clearances easy so he certainly didn't hit the ball to his midfielders advantage. Around the ground I thought Wood was the better player comfortably. Wasn't a bad effort I thought from Wood.

Wood has rucked in games this year where the team has kicked 9 goals and 8 goals, respectively, in the last quarters. He is plainly doing enough to enable the 'Pies to get their hands on the football and win clearances.

Very difficult conditions for a man his size last night and he performed creditably (as I thought he did against the Tiges).

Tannin wrote:Monco, I reckon you need to update your opinion of Minson. He has improved a lot over the last year or two, and has played a fair part in making life difficult for us in previous games. Why the Scraggers had him running around in the twos till this week, I have no idea.

Ignoring Brown, our third best ruckman is probably Chris Dawes. Yes! - but obviously he has other tasks. Cloke has taken hitout duty now and again too, and he's certainly built for it, but you wuildn't waste Trav in a ruck role. I suppose that leaves Keefe, though he is more of a giant KPP.

Spot on about Minson.

He did many stupid things last year, but last night I thought that was his best game in a very long time.

Was sitting near some dogs supporters, they also said they couldn't believe how well he played.

Tannin wrote:I can't believe you lot. First you say "who cares about the damn hitouts, Wood is useless around the ground, and that's what matters". Then, when Woody duly puts together a couple of solid games where he competes around the ground, lays some tackles, takes some marks, even chips in for the odd running handball receive, you turn around and say "oh, a ruckman has to win the hitouts". Make up your damn minds!

(Yeah, yeah, both is nice. But you can't have both, not unless you have a genuine champion ruckman, and even the champions struggle to do both all of the time.)

I was one of those who said "who cares about the hit outs" and I still say that. Hit outs are the most worthless statistic in the AFL and possibly in any sport. The fact that the Bullflogs got smashed in the clearances shows just how pointless the vast, vast majority of Minson's 56 hitouts were. The fact that Wood actually got involved at ground level is a good sign. As I said earlier, he was OK, but gave Jolly nothing to worry about.

I believe the centre tap outs are more vital.

I believe it was 12/12 or something along those lines?

For the first time in decades we don't have a problem in the ruck. Wood is a capable backup to Jolly. We have some great young players at the club which is where we should focus our salary cap at the moment. No new ruckman required !!

Duff Soviet Union wrote:I was one of those who said "who cares about the hit outs" and I still say that. Hit outs are the most worthless statistic in the AFL and possibly in any sport.

Could not agree more. Yes, it's vital to provide a contest in the ruck, so that the opposition ruckman isn't able to spoon-feed his smalls with clean possession, but after that, the number of hitouts garnered is meaningless - unless we are talking about hitouts to advantage and by "to advantage" we mean "clean ball" not "our mids eventually managed to win a 50/50".

A ruckman who can spoon-feed his smalls with clean ball from the stoppages is gold, pure gold. Any other sort of ruckman needs to earn his place by marks and goals around the ground (Jolly is good at these), providing an intimidating physical presence, and/or functioning as an extra midfielder who can get and use the ball after it hits the ground in a pack (this was Josh Fraser's forte).

Of course, the really good ones do all of those things, wich is why we call them "champions".

^ and another thing - ruck hitouts are a bit like kicks to a goal-hungry forward. It's one thing to get first hands to the ball, it's another thing entirely to do anything useful with it. (Like shove it down you rover's throat.) First hands to the ball without actually controlling where it goes in any meaningful way is like marking in the goal square and kicking at random - goal? point? OOF? For a ruckman, they all count as "hitouts".

Would've thought the years with Guy Richards and Chris Brian and a frequently injured Josh would've given us some perspective on what to expect from ruckmen.

Sure, Wood's no Jolly or Cox, but how many ruckmen are? Give the guy some time: he's hardly the worst ruckman we've had in recent memory, and he'd be seriously considered as the first ruckman at several other clubs.

Brenny wrote:

Tannin wrote:Monco, I reckon you need to update your opinion of Minson. He has improved a lot over the last year or two, and has played a fair part in making life difficult for us in previous games. Why the Scraggers had him running around in the twos till this week, I have no idea.

Ignoring Brown, our third best ruckman is probably Chris Dawes. Yes! - but obviously he has other tasks. Cloke has taken hitout duty now and again too, and he's certainly built for it, but you wuildn't waste Trav in a ruck role. I suppose that leaves Keefe, though he is more of a giant KPP.

Spot on about Minson.

He did many stupid things last year, but last night I thought that was his best game in a very long time.

Was sitting near some dogs supporters, they also said they couldn't believe how well he played.

Just putting this out there, have you considered that perhaps a reason why Minson played such a great game and surprised all Dogs fans was because Wood allowed him the freedom to do as he pleased?

It's like the old saying, 'you can only play as well as your opponent lets you!' I said Wood was Ok, but Minson killed him (well, maybe not killed him but beat him), and one good game from Minson against Wood does not make Minson any less of a spud that he has always been. My opinion on Minson stands until I see at least half a season of this type of ruck work from him.

I think our overall strength around the ground should be enough to cover Wood (in finals) as our #1 ruckman if "touch wood" we ever lose Jolly. Couldn't have said that before mid-2010 though.