Re: The rise and RISE of Marc Pittonet
Reply #539 –
People at the game saw Reeves and Meek win clear hitout after hitout, palming the ball exactly to where they wanted it for almost the 1st-1/2 of the game, with Carlton Mids brushing the Dawks aside and clearing the footy. That's why the HTA stat is bogus, because it's counting is completely dependant on what happens in the moment after the ball is tapped, it's not dependant on how skilful the ruck is.
Secondly, those of us at the game would have seen Reeves limping around just after 1/2-time, with SoJ able to jump over him for a brief period before Meek returned to ruck out the game, I'd assert it was that short period when SoJ would have earned most of his HtA.
Around that time Young was doubling up in the backline, a tactic that outside of our opponents getting an injury won't fly against Darcy and Jackson next week.
If we'd gone into today's game with two competitive rucks, in combination with the dominant Mids, we might have kicked a percentage booster.
The Dawks were so powerless to stop our Mids, for one brief period they tried to ruck Nash to have an extra Mid around the footy, but that only made thing worse for them and they went back to Meek winning the taps.