Carlton Supporters Club

Fox Footy has published our "best 23" for 2024.  Apart from including Elijah Hollands, they have gone with one ruckman, Tom De Koning, with Jack Silvagni as third tall forward and second ruckman.  That's only going to happen if Marc Pittonet is injured and our developing rucks aren't ready to play at AFL level.

AFL.com has a more convincing "best 22" with Tom De Koning and Marc Pittonet sharing the ruck duties and Jack Silvagni nowhere to be seen.  However, I'm not sure that whoever picked that team appreciates Jack's ability to find space inside 50, to mark on the lead, and his value when giving Charlie or Harry a break, as well as making the opposition sending a competent tall defender to him ; I don't really want to see Matty Cottrell lining up on a key defender.  On the flipside, we don't want Jack playing against a defender who will run off him.

If Jack is in form, he plays as our third tall forward and one of Matt Owies, Jesse Motlop and Lachie Fogarty misses out.

I'm not opposed to the idea of Jack as the sub.  He has the versatility to be the ideal contingency sub as well the ability to have an impact as a strategic sub.  I'm not convinced that a strategic sub needs to be speedy player to have an impact.

This is an article going back in time, to February of this year.

https://www.afl.com.au/news/878124/a-rucking-dilemma-blues-still-weighing-up-best-mix

The whole article is worth a read, even if it is old. The fact that team balance is important is a given, but there's  fair bit that goes into it, and unfortunately much of the info is not available to us.

.........................The question on Carlton's lips internally as it seeks to decipher its perfect ruck mix for the season ahead is how tall is too tall? Can the Blues play with Pittonet, De Koning and Silvagni, along with key forwards Curnow and McKay, in the same team?...............................

"A lot of it depends on some of their physical characteristics and height is one of them. But speed comes into it, endurance comes into it, agility comes into it, then capacity comes into it," Voss said.

"The capacity for them to be able to play tall or small, they're all factors. One thing we do have on our side when it comes to the front-end is that there aren't many 204cm guys that move like Harry. It's the same with Charlie. The agility and movement and speed are on their side, despite what their height measurements say..............................

David, if I've understood your post, your 6 forwards would be : McKay, Curnow, Martin, Silvagni, and 2 out of Moltop, Owies and Fogarty. Is that right ?

@PaulP, assuming the whole list is fit and available, based on the 2nd half of our 2023 season, can you really see us playing both SoJ and Martin alongside H and Charlie?

I suspect that will look top heavy, and we'll either have SoJ or we'll have Martin, with Motlop, Owies, Cunnigham and another as our rotating smalls.

Personally, we will struggling to lever in the likes of Kennedy, Hollands and Hollands, given Acres is a certain starter. To get them in with Cerra, Walsh and Hewett I suspect means Cripps must at stages rest forward, and that is not going to happen on top of Martin and SoJ.

I can't see it being viable to have Cripps resting forward while SoJ rucks, in my opinion we need our strongest Mid combination in play when our weakest ruck is in the rotation. But then that seems to be punishing the better Mids, why don't they get an easier run with TDK or Pitto?

As they say, "it's a nice problem to have."

Agility for a big man relative to other big men is all that matters, it's the opposition have to match up on them not a team-mate.

There you go skimming again and not reading the whole post.

I only have to address the issues that have some remote possibility of becoming a reality, the fantasy stuff I can ignore.