Blue Vain wrote:
Paddycripps wrote:
Look going into 2022 losing Casboult and not drafting another ruck and having Mirkov not ready was dumb
We have Mirkov, Pittonet and TDK. You want a 4th ruck? How many lists have 4 ruckmen? None I'd suggest.
It's overkill and unbalances the list. We had O'Mac and Young as back ups. It's just a shit year for our talls, but we still have adequate replacements. TDK is developing and JSOS is serviceable.
I loved Casboult for his determination and service to the club but his time was up as a Carlton player.
Watching Levi limp through every game he played last year, unable to apply forward pressure told us all his time was up, and needed to be replaced. He had knee problems the previous year, and he wasn't getting better.
Club did the right thing delisting him imo, but I was expecting to add another ruck too.
I'm a fan of playing 2 rucks (not 2 Mick Nolan's either) in Finals. Both rucks would need to be in form and a competitive beast to compete with the big boys at the pointy end of the season.
I disagree that 4 rucks disrupts the list. Most teams have 4 rucks, and its not unusual for us to do so either. In fact, I think we learned after that horrible stretch from 2002 when we had with only 2 bonafide rucks we needed 4: one to support the 2 bonafide rucks, and another developing and rucking in the reserves to learn their craft.
In
2003 Allan and French were our 2 rucks with Angwin, Beasy and McKernan as 'crap' back ups. Does anyone remember Cory in the centre bounces, jumping too early, missing the ball completely....We learned from that period we needed 4 rucks due to form and injury and a need for one in the reserves too. French was forced to carry the ruck on his own and the reserves didnt even have a ruck. Same happened to us this year when Mirkov did his ankle.
Then we added 196cm Cain "The courageous" Ackland to the ruck squad in 2006...and that wasn't the answer because he didn't play like a bonafide ruck.
2008 We picked Kreuzer to add to Warnock, Hampson and Jacob, who also had ruck support from Setanta and 196cm Cloke.
2012 Warnock Kreuzer Hampson and Casboult with some cameo support from Rowe when injuries forced our hand with Warnock and Hampson injured.
2022 should tell us 4 is the number of rucks we need on the list. With injuries to Pittonet and for a few weeks Mirkov, we had a lone developing ruck, TDK, take the mantle as No. 1 ruck. When Mirkov wasn't injured he wasn't and hasn't even been selected, so a bonafide ruck in the reserves would be great now whilst Mirkov develops.
Delisting Levi and replacing him with no one, left us with a 24yo Pittonet who is developing his ruck craft, TDK as the developing ruckman, and another on training wheels who we can't use in fairness to the player and the team being Mirkov.
I believe that less than 4 rucks leaves our list unbalanced.