Blue Vain wrote:
A lot to contemplate for the coaches. Kreuzer is a high quality ruckman around the ground but his form against the taller ruck men is terrible.
Gawn and Sandilands tore us apart in the centre square and Witts gave him a lesson around the ground. Our kids have shown they can compete in the middle if Kreuz can compete. When he cant, we're toasted.
Saturdays centre bounce stuff was embarrassing and our game consistently started from our defensive half.
Phillips is a better option in the middle but he doesn't have Kreuzers smarts at the general stoppages.
This weekend shouldn't be so bad as Grundy isn't a big body. But short term, we have to find a solution.
He was also towelled up against Sydney and North.
Grundy is in the running for AA.
We will just see more of the same this week against Collingwood at the bounces.
The issue is more that Kreuzer is so competitive away from the bounce.
Jim doesn't think hitouts are important and that hitouts to advantage are a made up stat but he has the blinkers on when it comes to Kreuzer and can't explain qhy the teams with the best ruckmen (Sydney aside) are all going well.
If hitouts to advantage don't count, how does anybody explain the emergence of WCE since Natanui got back? He's single handedly given them a free hit at the stopages.
Gawn, dito. Grundy, Goldstein....
Kreuzer's best work is in the follow up to the ruck contest and around the ground. I would let him follow up someone else's and not his own. Put him rotating through the midfield with Cripps, Dow and the rest and have Phillips do the hitouts. Jim says he is too slow to be a midfielder but he's already playing that role to his own work. he won't be any slower if he's playing off the back of the ruck contest than he is recovering from losing it.
Cue Jim's weekly rant about how playing two ruckmen doesn't work, even though I am yet again not proposing two ruckmen.