Vickery??! Vickery's spot is not at risk. Until his form is an issue rather than his health, he is crucial to our team structure. We don't have another player who can cover him effectively in his role as CHF/2nd Ruck.
i constantly have issue with this thinking.
chf is almost the key [position on the ground yet we want to play a bloke there part time. no other team actually does this. they play two genuine kpfs and a tall player who is the second ruck.
to me vickery should start in a pocket, jack at ff, and griffiths/elton at chf. when ivan has a break vickery goes into the ruck, our structure is not lost. this then allows us to say bring a very good smaller marking player on to the ground whos excellent and quick on the lead like Aaron Edwards. its an ideal change up.
if vickery is to play chf we need to find a for/ruck
as for form well as far as i can see vickery has one half decent yr behind him form to me is very much an issue. from what ive seen elton to me already looks a better marking player.
Collingwood? FF CHF Dawes, Dawes pinch hits.
Adelaide? Tippet CHF FF and pinch hits (well used to haha)
Calrton had Hampton play CHF FF and pinch hit
Essendon and Ryder?
Hawks and Roughy?
Saints and Kosi
Theres a lot of teams that have their second ruckman playing KP
collingwood won a premiership with dawes and cloke as permanent kpfs. leigh brown a kpp played second ruck and he was poor when in the ruck lets not kid ourselves here.
last yr without brown they played dawes second ruck but included tarrant and goldsack in their forward line to maintain structure.
adelaide - yep have used tippett as the second ruck. mainly because of no other option coming thru.
last yr though they did play both jacobs and josh jenkins as the third ruck/forward a significant amount of games. tippett will be a big loss to them.
carlton - when fit waite and henderson were locks for the key forward posts. they will now probably play casboult at chf sending henderson back. hampson plays as the third tall changing in the ruck with either warnock or kruezer. to top em off they have walker who is a genuine tall and a marking option of a different type.i say when fit because both waite and henderson played just 11 games each last yr of course hampson was likely to be asked to pick up the slack.
essendon - do i really have to answer this see carlton its a similar scenario. one thing you can bank on when ryder goes in the ruck the other ruckman goes forward. his role is for/ruck and all that implies.
this yr their tall forward options are carlisle daniher, gumbleton, hurley, crameri with ryder hille and even bellchambers resting forward.
stkilda - agree have relied on kosi to play in the ruck and leave riewoldt by himself.though in 09 they did structure up with kosi and riewoldt as the key forwards with gardiner and steven king in the ruck. with gardiner going forward to make a third tall option. they lost king for good during 2010 and gardiner in the first gf.
where are they heading. well quality aside they have gone with wilkes and riewoldt last yr with kosi as third tallfor/ruck. leaving mcevoy to play 1st ruck. they have added to thjis by getting tom lee.
hawks - agree last yr they played roughie as the second ruck robbing themselves imo. still even with him in the ruck they had the 196cm franklin and the 193cm gunston forward.
i have little doubt that the idea in getting hale was to play him as a ruck/for and allow max bailey to play as the #1 ruck. injuries to date have prevented this.
hawthorns problem is where to play roughhead imo i reckon they will do a sydney play franklin roughead and gunston forward and change bailey and hale off the bench. one thing for sure no matter what they do or who plays where they will not lose structure who ever goes into the ruck.
i keep on hearing we have lots of ruck/for options well that is plain wrong. atm imo we have just one and that is vickery. derickx has shown if anything hes not up to it and mcbean physically is yrs away. they are the only other genuine option.
surely we want to develop a few of our so called key forwards as key forwards.
we actually have two options to do this griffiths and astbury. elton should be developed for the role at coburg for now.
what is so wrong in wanting at least 3 tall kpfs including vickery. why do we insist on asking our chf to play this very demanding role and play 30% of game time in the ruck. i will ask again what happens to our structure when he goes into the ruck. usually it leaves just jack. its a roundabout it really is.what happens when either riewoldt or vickery get hurt and miss 10 weeks play mcguane forward as a kpp lol. or how about we suddenly pul;l griffiths out of the backline .
we dont need griffiths to play chb we probably dont need either of griffiths or astbury to play back. we can afford to play and develop one of them at the least as a forward. id say its a must we do so if we want some decent depth and cover up forward.
the way it stands atm we have rance grimes mcintosh chaplin griffiths astbury and darrou. all being developed as defenders.
it leaves just riewoldt vickery who everyone wants to play chf and in the ruck. elton who is a junior and not ready, plus the hack mcguane. god help us if riewoldt gets hurt or even vickery . how many on here bemoaned the loss of vickery last yr and the subsequent loss of structure, yet it seems no one wants to see something done about it wheres the forward development for next yr and the one after.
the logical thing to do is play griffiths at chf. play vickery out of a pocket and let him give maric a decent break. why do we wish to lose our chf and structure when he goes into the ruck, why do we wish to place such a work load on a 22 yr old. it also leads to the question are we ever going to try and develop vickery as a #1 ruckman if not where does that leave our future #1 ruck stocks.
if its not griffiths to play chf we should be playing astbury there. we have grave needs to develop actual kpfs.
one reason why i was okay with us getting miller was the simple fact our young tall forwards were not physically ready to play they are now. surely people have to be concerned with just riewoldt elton and vickery as tall forwards it is a recipe for disaster.