Last year's draft was very thin for decent ruckmen and that's highlighted by the fact that hardly any were picked up. I thought Max Gawn slipping down the order may have been worth considering though.
For list balance purposes I also don't mine not taking another ruckman last year, ideally you will have 4-5 ruckmen on your list, all at varying stages of development. For example, an older #1 ruckman, a mid-20 year old ruckman as #2, a junior developing ruckman and a speculative rookie ruckman fresh from the draft.
The thing I like about taking Vickery as a top pick, is that from now on we don't need to use multiple 2nd & 3rd rounders on rucks who are just as likely to not make it. We can take punts on far more speculative types later in the draft. Now hopefully Browne comes on like he shows glimpses of already and we can have a good ruck division with Vickery for the next 10 years. However the trap we can't fall into (again) is forgetting about picking more ruckmen up to start their development along the way. We did this with Ottens, took him at #2, recruited hacks as backup for him, then traded away out top picks in the best draft for years to get Stafford. Now Stafford was good for us and once Ottens left he did a great job, however when he retired the cupboard was very bare.
If only we took Cameron Wood with Pick 16 in 2004, sure he's no world beater, but started playing good football with the Pies at the end of last year and will only get better as he gets older.
