Anyone worried about our ruck problems? Not now we have Derickx

[MightyBloods]

I'm not worried about our reduction in ruck stocks. In fact, I'm more positive about our chances as I believe our game plan will be enhanced and not as top heavy. We have Pyke (who has showed resilience), Tippett and LRT to give back up. I'm hearing good things about young Naismith but I think the Swans wont want him exposed to 1st ruck this early. I believe we'll draft a more mature ruckman as insurance who will agree and be happy to play reserves and be called upon in case of injuries.

[penga]

I did some summer camps in the States in 05, and had another Aussie on the staff with me, so we were kicking a Sherrin around down at a park. One of the other staff, who happened to be 6'8, came over and wanted to kick, too, but had no idea how to. I gave him three basic fundamentals of kicking, and he was hitting my mate lace out from the get go. There is plenty of talent over there!!

The most encouraging sign from that vid of Mitchell is his blocking technique.. He has soft hands and will knock it down to himself, as opposed to just giving it a big whack out of bounds. Surely that is the most important aspect in converting him into a ruckman.

[aardvark]

He was probably too short to be drafted as a center. Under 7 ft = no hope. The other telling thing was the lack of shooting highlights but his skills in other areas look excellent.

[stellation]

The guy the AFL has working for them, Jonathan Givony, is a pretty clever dude. He runs draftexpress.com, if you go there it's full of scouting info and advanced stats and you start to get an idea of how geeky this all is (think of the AFL phantom drafts that people pop together each year, then have them put through a training program by Hird and Dank- but have it actually work and reach a point where people make a career out of it). The AFL engaged him to develop a scouting model based on stats deemed influential in how a player may translate to footy, from what I've heard it's pretty thorough (and he actually does the scouting against that model). A few interesting/left field examples that get looked at that someone mentioned to me were;
* breaking down offensive rebounds to identify guys that have gone after multiple offensive rebounds in one passage of play- so it might be a guy getting an offensive rebound, the resultant shot missing and then then getting another offensive rebound in the same passage: this is an indicator for second efforts, so going up for a ruck contest but then the legs being able to push off again quickly to follow the ball
* alley-oop plays: this is viewed as the player has fluid leaping ability (note that Mitchell has a lot of those in that clip), so apart from just going straight up they can go up whilst moving in a direction with their eyes on the ball. This is also broken down to whether it was a half court situation or fast break, if half court it's extra bonus points because it's assumed they have been able to pull it off amongst a crow of people.
* defensive rebounds leading to fastbreaks- so instead of just securing the rebound and having the ball slowly brought up the court, do they have a decent percentage of defensive rebounds that result in the ball moving on quickly. This is apparently a little thought of but key one, the idea here is to identify if they have experience in assessing situations to play on quickly and this can give an idea of how easily they could start to contribute quickly.

The point of those 3 was to paint a picture of a very tall, athletic guy who has zero footy experience but might be able to compete in the ruck based on size/athleticism- that alone might not be enough so you then can make an assessment on whether they may be able to follow up ruckwork with second efforts (multiple offensive rebounds), provide a marking target around the ground (alley-oops) and if they do get the ball not be hampered by lack of kicking skills by playing on quickly (defensive rebound to fastbreak).

It was actually all pretty fascinating stuff, I've sort of gone past my footy geekdom but was pretty fascinated when getting taken through it.

[BillyRayCypress]

That's amazing information Stella. Certainly puts these recruits into a totally different light.

Here I was thinking they had given up on Irish recruits because of the home sickness factor whereas as Americans just assume they own the world and are always at home.

[Meg]

Nice little local article about Gunnedah recruit Sam Naismith. He knows he's now got more opportunity. And it says here, at 208 cm, he is still growing!

Just how high can Sam the Swan fly? | Namoi Valley Independent

[0918330512]

Nice little local article about Gunnedah recruit Sam Naismith. He knows he's now got more opportunity. And it says here, at 208 cm, he is still growing!

Just how high can Sam the Swan fly? | Namoi Valley Independent

It says 105kg & still growing - I read that as adding bulk not vertically

[BillyRayCypress]

It says 105kg & still growing - I read that as adding bulk not vertically

Hopefully not horizontally.

[Ludwig]

Hopefully not horizontally.

Here's the latest photo of Sam and his girlfriend back in Gunnedah:

[Meg]

Yes on re-reading I see it is ambiguous. It says he needed to improve his diet to lose fat and I thought that meant he was losing weight. But turning fat into muscle does sometimes lead to weight gain. And his height is said to be 203cm in several places compared with 208cm in this article. So he either grew 5cm during 2013 or else there is a bit of exaggeration.

[Meg]

Here's the latest photo of Sam and his girlfriend back in Gunnedah:

Is that Gary Rohan's little sister?

[BillyRayCypress]

Is that Gary Rohan's little sister?

[Meg]

It must be how Benny McGlynn feels when he stands next to some of these ruckmen though!

[BillyRayCypress]

It must be how Benny McGlynn feels when he stands next to some of these ruckmen though!

Looking at nostril hairs would make you get very cranky.

[Auntie.Gerald]

i hair you !!!