Collingwood legend Nathan Buckley has doubled down on his call that ruckmen are “overrated” – more specifically ruckwork.
Buckley on Fox Footy’s On the Couch pointed to stats from Round 18 to support his argument, which showed several losing teams control the hit-out battle.
It included Essendon (+12 in hit-outs, -1 in first possession,-12 in clearances, lost by 17) struggling to get supremacy against a Melbourne side without superstar skipper Max Gawn.
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Similarly, Collingwood (+42 in hit-outs, -12 in first possession, -7 in clearances, lost by 2o) was beaten by Geelong in the midfield despite a massive outing from Darcy Cameron (career-best 58 hit-outs).
Furthermore, teams that have won the hit-out count in 2024 have only a 49 per cent win rate, suggesting it’s an irrelevant stat.
“It’s not necessarily if ruckmen are overrated, it’s if ruckwork is overrated,” Buckley told On the Couch.
“I think there’s so much that happens into a clearance and then into scores or field position from a clearance that I think we overrate hit-outs.
“The most important thing a ruckman can do is in his follow up at clearance – as an extra big body to crash packs – and their aerial presence in front and behind the ball.
“I think that’s why Max Gawn is such a dominant ruckman. Yes, he’s strong in hit-outs … but he does most of his damage aerially in transition and his follow up work.”
While Buckley acknowledged the game’s best ruckman can occasionally maximise hit-outs to advantage, he believes opposition teams can combat it when necessary.
“The stronger you get in a certain area … you’ll get tagged and find strategies to take that strength away from the opposition,” he said.
“If you allow Gawn to win hit-outs but you’re sharking against whoever is at ground level, you can still have a really effective clearance game and blunt a strength really quickly.
“I think that’s what teams do when they don’t have a dominant ruckman.”
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Buckley continued: “If you win hit-outs, you’re just under 50-50 to win the game. So it has no direct correlation on outcome at all.
“Stats are stats and there’s times when a ruckman will dominant … but I don’t think it’s as important as we think.”
It received some blowback from triple premiership Lion Jonathan Brown, who argued his former ruckman teammates relished in finals footy.
“I’m a bit old school maybe but Beau McDonald, Clark Keating and Jamie Charman stepped up when the whips were cracking in September,” Brown said.
Brown turned to Buckley with a laugh: “And you saw that first hand.”
But the former Magpies coach thinks there’s ultimately more nuance that contributes to an effective midfield.
“If you get a ruckman that can get the ball out and clear it himself like (Kieren) Briggs, (Tom) De Koning and (Brodie) Grundy can do, that is a strength you can really take advantage of,” Buckley said.
“But hit-outs and ruckwork in its purest form, it’s not where it’s at.”
Source Agencies
