Carlton Supporters Club

There can be no doubt Kreuzer is our best ruck option. The  lad is champ and like many are saying does his best work by spending most of the game at the coal face pushing opposition midfielders around.

But reality is he won't be making the taps to our next premiership winning midfield. He is vital to our short term survival, but we need a plan B and I doubt it is either Philips or Lobbe

Just to show you dont need Polly Farmer or Big Nic to win a flag, here are the last 10 Premiership Ruckmen:
2017 Toby Nankervis
2016 Jordan Roughead Tom Boyd
2015 Ben McEvoy
2014 Ben McEvoy  David Hale
2013 Max Bailey David Hale
2012 Mike Pyke Shane Mumford
2011 Brad Ottens Tent West
2010 Darren Jolly Leigh Brown
2009 Mark Blake Brad Ottens
2008 Robert Campbell Brent Renouf

Not exactly all plodders there.

This part time ruck/odd job player started with Jolly and Leigh Brown ...Brown wasnt much of a ruckman but he used to run around cleaning up players and being more of a physical presence rather than providing any ruck stats..

Not exactly all plodders there.

People get the emphasis wrong when discussing rucks;

Ruck is not the primary role with being a footballer second.

Footballer "is" the primary role, ruck is something that certain footballers do, some do it better than others!

Nankervis is  footballer who rucks, his football stats are often better than Grigg, and Nankervis is a good ruck!

When you are struggling as a footballer, ruck shouldn't be your get out clause! Some KPPs struggling to be footballers seem to use weak attempts at being a ruck as their golden parachute!

Having the wrong emphasis causes you to trade for players like Warnock, mind you prior to Enright putting the fear of god into Warnock with a king hit disguised as a spoil Warnock wasn't too bad as a footballer.

De Koning is the real deal long term, the kid is a footballer who rucks.

Players get given a run on ball (or in the case of struggling forwards) a turn in the ruck to get them involved in the game.

Like I said, ruck shouldn't be your get out clause if you are struggling to hold down your main role.

The idea of multi faceted players exists so you can put them somewhere and get value out of them on days when they are struggling and applies to all players unilaterally.

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Coaches who go down this path are a dead end to ultimate success, and it's a good reason why MM has so few flags from such a long long long career. He was excellent at standardising his team to finish in the upper echelon without having the flair to go that one step further.

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To be fair to Mick, in 01 and 02 he came up against one of the greatest teams ever at the peak of their powers.

I assume you mean 02 and 03, versus Leigh Matthews.

I know who'd I pick as coach. One was inventive and dynamic in many roles as both a player and coach, the other was a back pocket!