I've had a few conversations with fellow TC chatters recently. Some hate seeing Setanta in the ruck and would prefer Kennedy, others are the opposite.

I'm really dissapointed that we're playing Kennedy in the ruck to be honest. Mainly because i thought that in that draft, if we really wanted a ruckman/KP player, there was a beauty in Mitchell Clarke. A 197cm Johnathon Brown clone who could also ruck. Sure, had a bad championship but he was still loaded with talent.

So here we are, Kennedy in the ruck...............and i hate it.

But yet Pagan (and we all know damn well that i never have anything nice to say about the guy) takes a risk and throws Setanta in the ruck.

Now Irish, up untill this point, has shown so much and has prooved a few dis-believers wrong, but as a full-back he has been soundly beaten a few times (Gehrig, Brown, etc).

I personally love the move into the ruck, and Setanta REALLY seemed to enjoy the freedom through the centre of the ground.

Now the MC went back to the Ackland/Kennedy experiment the other day and we got done in the ruck. Ackland has picked himself up over the past couple of weeks which is good but Kennedy (and this is only my opinion) just does not have the leap to go into the ruck.

I know we had an issue about height but i just cannot see Kennedy being any taller than 195cm-196cm. Setanta is 199cm with a huge leap!

If we compare their performances in the ruck, Kennedy is averaging about 4 hit-outs, Setanta is averaging about 12-14 hitouts and has out-performed Ackland on two occasions.

Setanta could be anything. I see him as a Dustin Fletcher type clone and it's interesting to note that Fletcher couldn't ruck to save his life when he first tried it, whereas Setanta can.

Kennedy, whilst i wasn't a fan at picking him with our 2nd pick, does have some talent. But are we just confusing the poor kid between EXPECTING him to be a CHF for all of 10min a game, then throwing him into the ruck, then whacking him on the bench when our experiment doesn't work?

It all smells like a Livo situation to me.

So where do we go from here? We obviously need Ackland in the ruck. But who is his back-up?

Play Setanta, who has shown that he has the leap, can ruck, and loves the freedom around the grounds?

Play Kennedy, a 195cm-196cm Forward who has no leap and looks to be a bit confused?

Promote Aisakie, who has brilliant tap work and a piercing handball with pretty decent foot-skills around the ground too, but is it to early to promote him?

Play Hampson or Promote Jacobs?

Just interested in hearing everybody elses thoughts.

Mine?
Well, i'd love to See Setanta rotate between Ruck and a loose man down back. I think he Rucks quite well and for his first EVER outing in the ruck he damn near destoyed Josh Fraser (who i rate highly) in the first half before falling off in the second.

Play Kennedy as a Full-Foward, plain and simple. I don't think the poor kid could handle the responsibility of the CHF position, which is a MASSIVE ask, so just play him from the goal square.

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

I'm afraid I don't think Ackland is up to it mentally or physically.

Hence I reckon JK is the least of our problems in the ruck. We need to find a legitimate replacement for Ackland not substitute a pinchhitter.

hampson is not ready and neither is Jacobs. Aisake is the only one to me that has anything near the physical attributes and mental capacity to compete - and probably at a similar or better level than Ackland. Given expected progress over time that would be a win.

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This might sound extreme in the context of alleged sexual assault, drunken violence and a drug trafficking charge...

sound post.
You are right in that we are a ruckmen short at the best of times. imagine if ackland went down.

We need to bring in/fast-track another asap.
I agree that kennedy is not a ruck. Let him develope as a forward. play him deep and leave him there. CHF is the hardest posi on the ground and he needs to be comfortable with his basic game first.

Setanta as a ruck? genuinely unsure re this. Haven't seen alot of footage of him and have liked what I have seen of him as a defender. Leaning towards him as a defender.

From what I have seen (limited to tv) jacobs and hampson are both a way off. Hampson too slight, jacobs needs to do more around the ground.

Given that the season is gone I am in the promote Aisake corner. He is the next most likely and Hampson can wait.

Might as well do it now. play him off the bench.

As we have a part time ruck coach, it explains our pathological [or what appears to be] dislike of developing a ruckman.

If we move Carlos to the ruck in conjunction with Ackland, then do we revert T-Bird back to FB?

Comparing Carlos to T-Bird is likening David vs Goliath. Who do we play at FB or CHB as we seem to be fiddling with our entire backline at a time when we cannot afford to do so.

Some people are saying Hartlett is a forward and not a defender but he is a good size and perhaps deserves a chance down back. Bower seems too inconsistent at this stage to place there as we don't have the luxury of allowing too many goals thru.

In saying all of that, I think we need to perserve with Carlos at FB and not expect that he is going to ALWAYS beat his opponent. He will have agood and bad games and it is up to the other players and coaching staff to support him and keep him going.

Promote one of our ruckman NOW and see what we have - we have nothing to lose and we might find the key ingredient of the team that has been lacking since the days of Matty Allen.

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“It is a state of mind, a system of belief, a way of seeing the world, a deep faith that, because you are Carlton, you belong to something great.” - Mike Fitzpatrick articulating what Out of the Blue means.

Absolutely right!

Every week we kick less goals than our opposition.

Hence we need to stabilize our defence...Santa was starting to do a good job back there...

We need to play a GENUINE ruckman in the middle and be patient witht the Santa bown back.

He is a born FB...and they dont grow on trees!

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They coud'nt.....could they?

..you're taking the piss, right?

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There's so much I could say...

Good post DUC. Setanta down back and give his bro a go in the ruck. Nothing to lose and much to gain. He can be eased in to the game off the bench. Ackland can do 60% and Sake 20-40% with the slack taken up by JK if needed.

Ackland was good last week. I think he will continue to improve. Remember that French took a while to settle into the team. He was a dud for the first few games. Ackland just needs to lift his work ethic. He provides a good mobile target around the ground and just needs to break even in the ruck. That's until we get a real tap ruckman - hopefully Sake and/or Hampson.

It was Ackland's best game for the club.

He showed that he is better than I expected.

Hopefully he will take heart from that performance.

He still is'nt the answer though.

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They coud'nt.....could they?

He got free a number of times when we switched the ball to the outer wing. Neither Ackland or Hudson seemed to be worrying about each other. I agree he still isn't the answer; Hudson was able to tap the ball wherever he wanted on a number of occassions

WE ALL AGREE he's not the answer. Just like French, he is the time filler until a genuine mobile tap ruckman develops. Nearly all the top teams have one or even two very good ruckman. One of the first posts I ever made on TC was that we aren't going to be a finals team until we fill the ruck void.

No............not taking the piss.

The only listed heights i can find vary from 195cm to 196cm.

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

IIRC the 198cm figure was told to guests at an official club function?

hmm ... so why do you not believe the reported 198cm measurement??

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There's so much I could say...

I go onto AFL listed websites, The CFC homepage for example, and post what it listed....................which is 195cm.

It's simple really. It's the same reson why i didn't believe the whole 'Jordan Russell' going home thing. If that was posted by the club then sure, but until then i'll go on facts.

Look, at the end of the day we are arguing about a few centimeters. All i'm saying is that i don't think JK can ruck cause he just doesn't have the leap where as Setanta seems to have it, and have it good i might add.

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

The question is whether the official stats are reliable, Ryan. It's a bit like the official injury list - sometimes the clubs lie to gain an advantage.

The base stats are reliable - measurements from the draft camp and the like. They're done by independent sources and the potential draftees usually want to maximise their measurements and results.

But when they get to a club, the club might want to mislead other clubs into thinking that their player is taller or shorter than he is so that match-ups go awry. Or they might want to bump up weight to give fans the illusion of development. In short, the figures become less reliable.

For all we know, JK might be 198 cm. He might not be. That's one of the areas of uncertainty.

Yeah all true, and fair enough to Indie. But i just thought it would be safer to go off what is on the website, just for the purpose of this debate.

Either way, it's a few Centimeters. But i still hold strong that the importance of the Ruckman is his leap.

S.Hampson has.
Aisakie has it.
Setanta has it.

JK just doesn't seem to have it, whereas Cloke, who is same or a similar height seemed to have a much greatter leap than that of Kennedy. Which is kinda the reason i don't like seeing him in the Ruck. I'd much rather see him develop at full forward.

I just wanted to hear other peoples opinions on it all............

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

you guys are going about this all the wrong way

i have a 42" plasma right - thats 106cm diagonally across

now if you break out the old pythagoras theorim and work out the area of that triangle then freeze a frame when JK is in shot

you can work out how tall he is by allowing for the zoom rate of the camera - the distance from the camera - the moisture in the air and the amount of ambient light present.

i did this and i think you will find your both wrong

he is 197.2314 cm tall

see EASY !!!

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

Ryan, you and I are just regular CFC members (monkeys) who get fed a rigid diet of peanuts by the CFC.com to keep us interested.

We're both lucky enough to have inside sources here on TC to give us extra info and when those generous informers offer up their information we should be accepting and greatfull.

If BlueBern , who is a Bluesuit member, reports that JK was measured at 198cm it should be taken as fact.

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There's so much I could say...

I agree with you, Budzy, that we should accept that Bluebern was told that JK was measured at 198 cm. But that doesn't mean we should accept that he was actually measured at 198 cm.

As I indicated above, the club has a variety of motives in putting out information and disinformation. Maybe they wanted to gee up the Bluesuits. But you have to subject everything to some critical analysis. We can't accept the listed heights as gospel either, for the reasons I've given above.

I've also been accused of calling someone who posted things he'd heard from club sources a liar, when all I was doing was suggesting that their sources might have reasons why they'd put out false or misleading information. To doubt someone's source is not to doubt the integrity of the poster.

Sorry Indie, can't see them bullshitting coterie members. If they were found to be telling porky's it would undermine coterie membership, which is financial stupidity.

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There's so much I could say...