Had mid pricers so with the downgrade of Goldy, and dropped to cheaper rooks that have put their hand up in each line helped get better options that i'm more comfortable with.
Rucks 2016
- Thread starter Fbdonkey
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Had mid pricers so with the downgrade of Goldy, and dropped to cheaper rooks that have put their hand up in each line helped get better options that i'm more comfortable with.
He's not a must if you go with Doddys line of thinking. If going with 2 premo non-Goldy rucks means you can shore up your other lines and cover the shortfall in points that you cop by not having Goldy then it could be worth it. You just have to come to terms with knowing that you're going without the guy who will most likely be the best scoring ruck by 10ppg over the year.
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I'd say that it's a very good idea to have either Goldstein or Martin at R1 as they look guaranteed to continue as two outstanding scorers.
R2, in my opinion should either be someone reliable such as Jacobs (or Martin if you don't have him R1), or a popular top-end pick such as Naitanui or Gawn. Think I'd steer clear of Lobbe as he doesn't seem to have the point-scoring ability of the others, despite being popular.
Z.Smith might get some interest as might Blicavs or another less popular pick, but their selection numbers might make them more of a risk if they post lowers scores in comparison to the popular selections. You could get lucky with a unique but beware of the risks.
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I'm a massive fan of O'Brien. I'm just not sure he will get a game. If the big sauce gets injured this year if prefer to maybe cash in my current r3 for him.
Is anyone getting sauce? with burger? not me, my missus has me on a diet
This kind of falls under the "Team Structure" heading but what are everyone's thoughts on R3? At this stage, of the rucks priced at a Rookie price (under 200K) it seems fair to say that it looks like only Grimley and potentially Currie are going to get regular games to begin with. Cox, O'Brien etc seem doubtful. The question that I'm asking now is, should I pick Grimley or Currie at R3 as genuine ruck cover OR should I put Grimley on my Fwd Bench and put a basement price Ruck/Fwd who won't play immediately (like Cox/Chol etc) at R3? Either way I'll have some sort of ruck cover but the latter option provides an immediate opportunity to utilise the VC loophole with a non-playing R3. That's my question I guess...What value do people place on the VC Loophole vs having a non-playing R3 who isn't earning you any money, presuming that the goal is normally to have all your initial rookie selections playing from Round 1? Hope that all makes sense?!!
Some of Gawns and Martins missed games were probally not due to injury. Big men apparently develop slower so they may have just not been able to get a game.
all depends if you want ruck cover or not. If you want to use the loop hole then you can always use D8, F8 or M9 for the loop hole by selecting the cheapest player available.
Im thinking of having Petracca in my fwds as a loophole for the first couple of weeks and having Currie as R3
I was on board using Petracca as a loophole but he's not even a good option for the first couple of weeks and I figure by then there will be someone else I can use to loophole.
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Tempted to use Petracca in the mids for loopholing, but not sure it's worthwhile. He's back about round 6 by the sounds of things, but risky to hold a bloke that long with no guarantee he'll even crack the side straight away.
Which means he's the perfect downgrade target come round 10. I don't know why so many people are intent on keeping him. Make 150k off another kid first.
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I've had NicNat/Gawn all preseason and I've just traded NicNat up to Goldy. I picked NicNat as he's fit and has averaged 114 previously. However, if you go back and look at that season in depth he actually only topped 125 on 4 times and most of his scores were in the 100-120 range. He had 8 scores over 114 and 14 under - so his average was boosted by some big big scores. His big scores came against poor ruck combinations and he hit the scoreboard heavily in those games. He also had Cox to allow him to push forward more and to be fresher. And it was prior to HTA rules.
Last season he showed some of the same traits, only the bulk of his scores were 75-95 and again his average was boosted by 5 big games. He should increase his average this year, but I don't think he can get as close to 115 as I thought and I've reassessed my prediction to 105-108. Premium but not a top 2 ruck.
Just thought I'd share why I've jumped off him after being on the NicNat train all preseason.
Last season he showed some of the same traits, only the bulk of his scores were 75-95 and again his average was boosted by 5 big games. He should increase his average this year, but I don't think he can get as close to 115 as I thought and I've reassessed my prediction to 105-108. Premium but not a top 2 ruck.
Just thought I'd share why I've jumped off him after being on the NicNat train all preseason.
Hi Lowrider. No offence to you - because I've read a lot of what you've written this preseason and I think plenty of it has been interesting and on the money - but I'm not sure this is a great analysis of NicNat.
1/ You state: "Last season he showed some of the same traits, only the bulk of his scores were 75-95" but you ignore the fact that most of his weaker scores were at the start of the season and most of his good scores were later in the season. To me this looks like he was underdone at the start of the season and he started to smash it once he was fully fit.
2/ You state: "His big scores came against poor ruck combinations". But he will still come up against poor ruck combos this year, right? If you exclude his scores against easy opposition across a season you're not going to have a balanced analysis. All you can really take from it is that you shouldn't take NicNat a C or VC option when he's up against a good ruckman it really has no effect on whether he'll be a good season long keeper.
3/ Finally, you subject NicNat to the "His big scores came against poor ruck combinations" analysis but then say you're happily taking Gawn without subjecting him to the same analysis. Gawn's rating is based on a small sample size and is inflated by some good scores against poor opposition - why aren't you dropping him too?
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Fair points and happy to elaborate a little more:
1 - A lot of those scores were early in the season but he still had quite a few later in the year as well, most notably on GF day and games against GC and ADE later in the year. If you look at his last 9 games he only averaged 97. His first 8 games he averaged 86. He had a stretch in between of 6 games where he averaged 127. So whilst you could say he had poor scores early, he didn't exactly finish the year that well either.
2 - Yes he will come up against poor combos and I expect him to score heavily against the Dogs, Tigers and Port. And he is a season-long keeper, but my point is I've reassessed my expectation of what he will average and don't think he can be a top 2 ruck. If we were only worried about when he'd score big we'd all have Tex, Betts and JJK in our sides. Also Cox/NicNat completely obliterated these weaker guys, now NicNat has to do it all on his own.
3 - Gawn is a very different proposition as he is all about speculation. I'm not looking at him averaging 114 in the past and saying he'll do it again. I'm looking at a bloke who's a monster in the ruck and at ground level, can take contested marks and has had the ideal preseason boosting his fitness and having a brilliant NAB series. I can't say that he won't have a lot of low scores and beat up weaker combos - but I'm speculating he'll be a 115 ruck and be top 2 based on what I've seen in glimpses this preseason and the odd game last year.
I guess I'm ultimately comparing Goldy and NicNat. I assess Goldy at about a 120. If NicNat went 115 and I saved $130k I'd be happy with that - essentially saying I'll take having the #2 and #3 rucks and be happy. Now that I've reassessed NicNat to 105-108 then that 10ppg is not worth $130k in my eyes. With that Goldy and Gawn are clearly #1 and #2 in my eyes so that combo makes sense to me.
FWIW - my current expectations for averages this year if fit:
118-123 - Goldy
112-117 - Gawn
105-110 - NicNat, Martin, Sauce, Sandy, Mummy (although Mummy could be anywhere from 100-125 depending on his body)
97-102 - Blicavs, Grundy, Nicholls
85-95 - Maric, Smith, Sinclair, Tippett, Leuenberger, Lobbe, McKernan, McEvoy, Hickey, Witts
By the way, if someone wants a mid-pricer I'd consider Hickey. Picked as a solo ruck this week with Longer nowhere in sight - not sure what's happening with Longer who was preferred last year, no NAB games, not in the 25-man squad and not on the injury list?? Hickey's a decent ruckman who takes grabs and gets the ball around the ground too. If he's solo rucking most of the year I think he could average 90+ and would be a better proposition than Lobbe.
I'd avoid any Sainter ruck. They still haven't really decided who the no.1 ruck is. Longer was injured earlier in the pre-season and is behind Hickey in being match-ready. Long term I think they want to play a dual ruck set-up with Hickey as the fwd-ruck but primarily fwd.
http://www.saints.com.au/news/2016-03-14/ruck-spot-still-wide-open