Have they become irrelevant (from a SC perspective)? Rucks scoring seems to be all over the place and they don't seem to be having the scoring impact some of us (well, me) had anticipated with the AFL rules changes this year. Sauce Jacobs is currently stinking it up for me, and I'm seriously considering MPPing Cox into his place, and replacing him with a Dustin Martin type in my forward line. What are people's thoughts on the value of the rucks this year, and has it panned out as you thought it might?
Ned, Jacobs hasn't been that good this year, but rucks in general have been holding their own. Up until round 4 (since round 5 isn't complete yet the numbers aren't in), if you go to the stats page and select all rucks and forwards, then sort by average, you'll see a fair collection of rucks at the top of the list. Currently its: Westoff, Cloke, Cox, McEvoy, Minson, Walker, Maric, Rioli Goldstein, Bartel, N Riewoldt, Kennedy, Monfries, Franklin, Rockliff, Martin, Chapman, Stokes who are averaging more than 100ppg. Thats 5 ruckmen and 13 forwards (counting Cox only as a Ruck). If you had Cox in your forward line, and McEvoy and Minson in your rucks (with a Rowe type DPP) then you'd have the three best rucks to the end of round 4, which also includes the third best forward. I'd say the rucks are holding their own amongst the forwards, its just that Jacobs has underperformed.
My issue with this is, if you do the same analysis as at the end of last season, you will find rucks were holding down 9 of the top 15 places. Plus, for the amount of coin you needed to outlay on a top ruck from last year, I am not seeing the relative value I might have anticipated. (Goldstein is an exception, who I must admit I had forgotten. I still need to be convinced that big Wilbur can maintain his current scoring level)
You say it yourself, last year rucks held down nine of the top 15 spots (I haven't checked for myself, so I'll just go with what your wrote). With more ruck-fwd DPP options this year, wouldn't you want both of your ruck spots with the best pure rucks you can get, and half your fwd line with DPP ruck-fwds, who are scoring better than their pure fwd counterparts.
Having said all of that - I'm now starting to lose faith in Jacobs. 77 and 66 in the last two games are much less than you want from a $500k+ ruckman. He has the Hawks and GWS over the next two weeks - the Hawks game may be a bit of a struggle, but if he fails against GWS he'll be goneski!
JPK wrote: Having said all of that - I'm now starting to lose faith in Jacobs. 77 and 66 in the last two games are much less than you want from a $500k+ ruckman. He has the Hawks and GWS over the next two weeks - the Hawks game may be a bit of a struggle, but if he fails against GWS he'll be goneski! And further to that, Jacob's may find himself spending less time in ruck with Sando seriously considering bringing in McKernan or Graham because of Jacob's lack of influence compared to last season!!! I too am a Jacob's holder who is rapidly losing faith in him!!!