Can anyone EXPLAIN this ...Brownlow Ruckmen ?

Question

No Club has won a premiership with a Brownlow medalist ruckman .... 4 teams that all shared/produced the Brownlow rucks have failed to win Flags , Footscray , Sth Melb Fitzroy , Collingwood .. Schultz, Dempsey Round , Teasdale , Thompson and Moore . When Hafey and Barassi who coached 4 flags each coached teams with Brownlow rucks they both failed . Hafey had Thompson and Moore Barassi , Dempsey and Moore ? Every one talks about the game starting with the ruckmen . Does it simply equate to fairest and best .."NOT AGGRESSIVE". Looking back over the years, teams with an aggressive ruckman have succeeded. How important is the ruckman in todays game ?

Answer 1

Yeah the Ruckman do play a very important role in Football, However it's usually the standout ball carriers that get the Brownlow.

Althouh you have standout ruckmen in the comp. The usually don't carry the ball on long runs, dish off look to recieve again, chase tackle, and rack up the possesions. (apart from Goodes)

Ruckman get the hands to the ball via rucking and plugging hole or drifting forward, but more often than not they handball instead of kick and don't often run with the ball bouncing down the wing.

Without a good ruckman teams do struggle, but the Brownlow usually goes to a player who runs carries the ball, breaks tackles, sets up other players, and gets possesions, and it's these players that the umps notice more. Especially now with the pace of the game, it would be unusual for a "lumbering" ruckman to get the votes.

Answer 2

Agree!  Pretty ruckmen may help win the soft games with clever taps and nice marks standing away from where they should be but when it comes to crunch time, you need a big body hitting in hard.  The opposition ruckman has to think twice about where he jumps.  (That sort of ruck man will never win brownlow votes coz the ump's staring at him and warning him all day)

That was the Cats decision in this years GF - big tough experienced guy who can use his elbows (subtly of course) or the young talented but slightly skinny guy who got pushed off the ball all thru the finals.

The ruck is more critical in the modern game than ever. With the efficiency and speed away from the stoppages, a centre clearance becomes a score two out of three times.

Your ruckman, though, needs a lot of smarts too - he can't just be a boof-head and as the man in the thick of most of the tight stuff he needs to be inspiring.  This is a large part of why I'm tipping St Kilda to lift next year.

Answer 3

i sort of agree but i would lead more to coincidence than set in concrete,Adam goodes has 2 medals and was the ruckman in a granny winning side and now they have spider ,west coast won a granny with the best ruckman in the comp (although no brownlow coxy is the no.1 man at the moment) so lets not under-estimate the influence of the big men,ottens basically got Geelong into the granny agains the pies this year.