Strategy An Unfortunate Opportunity - The Case for Playing a Single Ruckman

[Biggie]

An uncomfortable conversation that one could only imagine would be very hard to have at WCE HQ

The merit of Lycett on his own is good and is sound.

The face WCE have been running with two rucks for what seems like forever is something I can’t see them disbanding just yet.

Interesting times ahead.

 

[Dylan82]

Two matches on and the match committee have not changed a thing - so no surprises about the following then:

Last two matches highlighted in gold.​

This week it is likely we will face wet conditions against an opposition that has named a singular ruckman. We are currently listed to play with two rucks yet again.

If that holds true, I expect to see us having difficulty once more in preventing the opposition from counterattacking off our offensive forays.


Without Naitanui's involvement, we become a very average team when fielding multiple rucks - this is nothing new, we already know this; we spent considerable parts of 2016 and the entirety of 2017 demonstrating such.
What we don't know is how effective we can be in playing a singular ruckman with the aerobic capacity to see the game out by themselves, thus providing extra rotational allowance for other areas of the squad.

The disappointment for me is that doing nothing effectively guarantees that the season will peter out, dwindling into another also-ran year, without any realistic chance of a premiership.