Yep. Its certainly not an exact science. I do agree that competition for spots is a good thing. We really need Vickery to stand up this year and I think he can. Still has plenty of development in him.
Does anyone know how competent Ivan was when he was Vickery's age? Might be an interesting insight.
was drafted 04 along with john meeson. managed 14 games in his first three seasons.
0 in 05, 8 in 06 and 6 in 07.
ivan was in competition with biglands hudson clarke griffen and meeson at various stages. thats some ruck depth hey.is there a lesson for us here.
pretty sure biglands did his knee in the 06 finals. he then did his knee again if i remember correct in 07. he stayed on their list for a few more yrs but did not play another game. they traded clarke at the end of 06 to stkilda ?. and hudson went to the dogs at the end of 07.
suddenly there was a spot to be had. maric played 16 games in 08 griffen managed 12 moran who the crows had just traded for played 7 and they had tippett who played 19 games and gave the ruckmen a chop out. his 08 was very servicable as far as playing in the ruck went i suppose you could say the load was pretty well shared.
09 he played 20 games and become the clear #1 ruckman. again had a decent yr as a ruckman very competetive but nothing world beating.
griffen had a poor yr and managed just 2 games but ivan had plenty of help from tippett who had a standout yr both as a forward and back up ruckman. moran did his knee rnd 12 after looking good early in the season. sellar also pinch hit in the ruck.
10 ivan again lead there ruck. again servicable without being outstanding tended to go missing for chunks of games. was backed up by griffin and tippett again.
think meeson was delisted or traded .also at the end of this yr griffen went home and moran was having serious injury issues still. so they went and got jacobs.
11 jacobs had a very good yr surpassing anything that ivan had done to date. the crows decided to go with jacobs and tippett as backup and didnt see the need to play ivan he had effectively been surpassed. played just 6 games and was traded to us at the end of the yr.
looking back you could say ivan was tracking along okay with incremental improvement each yr until 2011 when he was overlooked for a significantly higher performer.
just my opinion but as a ruckman id place maric a long way in front of vickery at the same stage of their careers. always a competetor and physically a mile in front of vickery.always gave a contest at the least when rucking.
vickery has it over ivan in other ways but apart from a very good goal haul last yr vickery has not performed to the same level as ivan.
until this yr vickery was a bit like ivan in that he was tracking in the right direction each yr. he obviously is too young and physically lacking to play with injury so he has a decent reason for not continuing to track in the right direction.
not much info there that you and everyone else probably didnt already know but theres an indicator of what ivan has done and ythe competition he had for a game. imo ivan in yrs 4 5 and 6 was pretty decent.poor in yr 7 and outstanding in yr 8.
the one thing that stands out in this is just how hard it is to get good ruckmen just look at the work the crows have put in to get good ones.
ive alwys advocated 4 or 5 on your list at varying stages of development you also need to vary the type of ruckman on your list.
we have a good ruckman in ivan. we need another mature ruckman who can compete and do a job at afl standard. gus should be this ruckman but hes not good enough. we need a quality young ruckman as a key component of any succesion plan we have. we need him in our system as soon as possible. and it would not hurt us to have a rookie ruckman or even couple of different types on the rookie list.
