This selection @#$%&! up deserves a separate thread.

An interesting article in Inside Football this week about the place of a back up ruckman. The need for 2 bigman was no more evident than last night where the weight of the White/Jamar combo proved too much for Simmonds.

So with the doggies selecting both Minson and Street why not play Bryan and not Sporn purely on what I have already stated.But wait there is more.


Bryan simply deserves a game.He has been playing ok for the ants with a good game last week after DP talked him up prior.McLaren was going to be dropped .Logic would suggest to bring another ruckman for 3 obvious reasons
1 Your dropping a ruckman
2 The opposition may play 2
3The opposition are short and having a tall team with the roof closed at the phone dome tomorrow would be an advantage.

Plus having a guy who can kick it 60m is always worth seeing.


Now someone on TC has suggested that two grabs will be the back up for the fry.Lets not get too far ahead of ourselves. Arch has not a clue about ruckwork.He simply doesnt contest hard enough at the clearences and jumps too early often.And playing Bryan means having Deluca up forward to provide some value and expose the doggies height inadequancy in defence.To suggest that Kennedy does some ruckwork is ludicrous at this stage of his career.


It seems that common sense has left the bowels of the the selection room at Princess park.

Bryan may eat more meat pies than he should and needs to eat more fruit and veg but he deserves a game as much as Trent Sporn deserves to be dropped because
1 It is fair and reasonable based on form
2 That old chestnut team balance

I can hear DP if he reads this saying "what would you know about top flight footy son"

Well Denis we know more than you flower think.

mate........................don't even get me started. I'm getting more and more frustrated by Dennis and the MC and each week it just gets worse & worse!!!!

All i can do is look forward to two or three years time when we have a new coach!

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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit"
- Aristotle

i'd rather wait 2 or 3 years like you than sacking pagan now and geting a shit coach for him, in 2 or 3 years there might be a good caoch available for us, maybe a good coach will leave his club or someone like voss, buckley, hird might wanna coach, we have to let DP serve out his conract and develop this team as much as he can.

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Last edited by true_blue3 on Mon Sep 26, 1981 5:07 pm; edited 92 times in total

One good week from Bryan and he suddenly jumps ahead of McLaren?

We still have Deluca in the team, so at least as far as size goes we're roughly the same. What we need is enough runners to compete with the abundance of Bulldogs smalls, and we need our taller players to either be flexible in where they can be positioned or completely dominate a position.

If Bryan can start doing that in the ruck, fantastic. McLaren hasn't shown that of late but can pinch hit up forward and back as well as ruck when in form, Deluca is putting his hand up again as a permanent forward, which leaves Prendergast who is ever flexible, if still a complete unco.

My point? None of McLaren, Prender or Bryan deserve a spot at the moment, regardless of how that disturbs our ruck play.

This would be a valid issue, IF we were actually trying to win

Expect another ruckman next week - a real chance to win. McLaren played his best game for us against Essendon* last time and Bryan has shown with possessions and goals in the wet that he deserves a game.
Essendon*'s defence isn't that good against decent talls either.

So you bucket the process of validating those on the playing list who deserve their opportunities?

Bryan will probably get a shot later on this year and probably won't make it. All up to him to prove others wrong.

On the subject of Bryan he kicked 4 of our 8 goals in todays 33 point winning Bullants team. Fair effort in the conditions.

Let's not wait. 2 or 3 more years of what we're getting would "kill" our club because we're not going to do any good while he's there. Membership would just keep dropping as may sponsors.

we did that after 2002 and look where that got us. there's no good coaches on the market and i dont wanna have someone like mark harvey or gary o'donnell coaching my club.

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Last edited by true_blue3 on Mon Sep 26, 1981 5:07 pm; edited 92 times in total

Well next week looks to be the "Battle for the bryce gibbs cup", so selections will be interesting for that game against the dons.

i dont think Essendon* wants gibbs and we really need gumby (as a CHB), nevertheless it will go a long way in determining who finishes last.

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Last edited by true_blue3 on Mon Sep 26, 1981 5:07 pm; edited 92 times in total

I think I'll bucket what I want. Everyone else does.

Good on Bryan for showing some urgency in the pursuit of his chosen profession, however I think decisions have already been made on most these guys, if two or maybe only one genuine ruckman fell into our lap, our entire senior listed ruck division could just about be delisted without a second thought. None of our senior-listed rucks are up to it.
But it doesn't really matter because we aren't trying to win (and at this stage probably shouldn't be)

I read that Russell is out and O'Hailpin is in .He may be the second ruckman whilst Bryan continues to star in the twos.

Ity probably wouldn't be the worst thing that could ahppen to him, but I am sure the coaching staff would rather play him in defence. It would be beneficial if he could get used to playing in one role before he gets another lumped onto him.

Gee, it seems that requiring a player to earn promotion is now a cause for anger. Livo, Wiggins, Sporn, Teague, Prenda, TLo (before his injury) and Bannister have all put in 100% on the track and in the VFL to earn a recall to the senior side. Bryan's attitude has been questionable on the track, in the VFL and away from the club. You might not want to see the above players in the 1sts, but you can only admire them for the way in which they conducted themselves. But certainly it is quite appropriate for the match committee to send a message to the squad as to what they expect from the players, and anyone who can't meet those requirements just can't expect to get games. Kenny Sheldon on radio thought so. How a player of Bryan's age hasn't learned from the example of the other senior players in the VFL or from Carlton's delisting of Karl and LA is beyond me.

Everyone acts as if Bryan is a wunderkind like Akermanis/Ablett/Angwin who has to be played because he has more talent in his little finger than most other AFL players have in their entire bodies. If he is, then I must have missed the proof. He hasn't set the world on fire in the VFL. You would have thought that he'd be able to do so at will, because he doesn't have much to compete against. He would be opposed by 3rd, 4th or 5th string ruckmen, or the 3rd to 6th best defenders at most AFL clubs. If he had the ability to play as a tall forward in the AFL, he would be able to comprehensively beat those defenders given his height. But he hasn't been doing this. A while back in the televised VFL game, he was whipped when he played as a tall defender. The last 2 weeks have been a welcome change in his form. The bag of 4 in the wet probably was worth over 5 in the dry. Finally, his on-field performances are acceptable. Hopefully, he is now showing a renewed commitment towards the club.

Unfortunately, Barney is the type of player that thrives on rucking for the whole day. His performance deteriorates if he is spelled for anything more than the last few minutes of a quarter. Having a 2nd ruck on the bench for all but 10 to 15 minutes of the game is a luxury we can't afford. This is particularly so when French doesn't have the flexibility to play forward or back, and has to go to the bench when he isn't rucking.

The next question is whether Bryan can prosper with limited game-time as a back-up ruckman. Unfortunately, McLaren doesn't as he also benefits from rucking for most of the day. Good form in the VFL in the ruck doesn't really shed much light on this issue, and in Bryan's case he hasn't shown much form in the ruck anyway.

So, can Bryan display some versatility to prevent him sitting on the bench for most of the day. McLaren has the ability to play as a tall defender on super-tall forwards. Bryan allegedly has the ability to play forward.

But would he be of much use in the forward line? This notion of the resting ruckman being a target in the forward line died some time ago. Very few ruckmen have the ability to do this at AFL level now. Lade is excellent, and Simmonds can do it. JLo is probably a better forward than ruckman. Ottens can't do both now. Darcy when fit would be capable. Spida a few years back had the capacity. Gardiner hasn't set the world on fire. Maybe White would be worthwhile.

The reason why the resting ruckman is dead as a dodo is that they aren't great on the lead. This is exacerbated by fatigue when they are also rucking (see Ottens). Few of them can hang on to marks from long bombs given the way that most teams flood the last line with defenders. They have negligible capacity to keep the ball in when the ball hits the ground. Their defenders run off them and run freely to provide targets in the forward line.

I haven't seen any particular evidence of Bryan having the pace or acceleration to be a good lead at AFL level. He certainly has not shown much intensity in his leads in training or VFL games.

Is he able to play as a static marking target? The problem is he hasn't established much of a reputation for being a great mark either (and our footskills are not so well developed that we could reliably kick to his advantage in any event).

He would likely be a real liability if he played forward against the Doggies. If he had been kicking bags for the last few weeks, we might have had more confidence in him.

It is absurd for us to try to "exploit" their lack of height any more than we already have. After all, we have French, Deluca, Kennedy, Fisher, Fev, Santy and Lance. If we were competitive as a team and in the midfield, maybe. But we have tried the tall forward line for all of this season without much success. Why would it work against the Doggies? Their likely domination of the midfield will give us few opportunities to feed tall forwards, and we would need to be confident that we would take marks on most of the occasions we go inside 50 for the strategy to work. This is the sort of risk that only long-shot gamblers would take. For every one occasion when it might work, there will be well over 10 times that it blows up in our face.

I can't see how anyone could complain about us trying to ensure we have flexibility on the bench to try to match their midfield reserves. At the end of the game, I suspect we will be wishing we had another 3 midfielders to call on.

Sos you make some valid points about Bryan.

However you havent convinced me on the lack of need of 2 ruckman in the side.

Now that the game is done and dusted lets look at what happened.We once again got smashed in the centre square in the last quarter.

Sos the hitout count was 27 to 14.Our onballers did a terrific job in keeping us in the contest but when it really counted in the last quarter we couldnt get it out of the centre and the doggies got on a roll.Street and Minson onto French.Its 2 onto 1.French's big clanger handball to Minson was probably a case of fatigue winning over good judgement.

I also think Bryan could be servicable roaming around CHB and could set up attacks into the forward fifty with his kicking.The guy has been close to BOG in the magoos the last 2 weeks.Not having a second ruckman on Sunday cost us dearly IMO in the end. Sporn was a waste of a selection and contributed almost zero so why not play Bryan and interchange him with French off the bench.

As I and others have said before our selection committee make some weird decisions and when Minson was selected on the interchange bench of 4 then Bryan should have played.Its called common sense.

I actually agree wth SOS at the end of the game I found myself wishing we had three more midfielders.

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

So there's a strong case to consider drafting ruckmen, let alone a ruckman in the next 2 drafts. I hope this is sinking in.

Pick 1. Leuenberger. He wont be available at pick 18 or 20, and neither might Renouf. If they are and we haven't picked them with our first picklets pounce, to ensure we are building a team for the future.

French, McLaren don't feed our midfielders let alone do the other around the ground things ruckmen are supposed to.

A DeLuca will be a good, and maybe a great forward for a period of time in the future, and maybe a forward ruckman.

Bryan, like McLaren is not a genuine ruck size.

One ruck is not enough, so pick Leuenberger, who will take at least 3 years to get up to them tempo. Next year pick a second ruckman to complete the duo we require. If one of those two fail, then at least we have Aisake who has all the physical attributes we need from a ruckman.

The key to such a radical approach is what happens with Fabian DeLuca, and/or Gardiner.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

French played for 76 minutes on the weekend.The only player to get more than one hitout was Whitnall who got 2. Regardless how some think Bryan is shit he probably would have got around 10.That would make the hitout count 22 to 19 in favour of the dogs not 27 14. The point is play 2 ruckman.Simple as that.And if we are going to offload Batson then we need to recruit a couple in the draft.And not Gardiner.