Ridley, you aint seen "nothing" till you put Polehack in the ruck. He'll redefine it if he hasn't already. But hey, fair enough, it's marginal ATM. The rule's pretty simple since the circle got smaller IMO - rucks now have to be physical.
And as for dropping Tuck, well, he's physically dominant, that can't be good. One's too many in that class. ;D
But there must be a reason he's named on the bench. He didn't get much game time last week - I thought he was being rested a bit. He flogged Corey but who did he move on to in the second half? Against Esserden he had Watson - massively strong over the ball - got 8 or so clearances. Did Tuck bugger up? ...
FWIW I'm fine with Tuck getting the flick in favour of 400k pa Joel. If anything Joel is stronger when he puts his mind to it (IF he can get to the contest) and he can use even if he has the odd glitch. But you wouldn't start that experiment against Sydney, would you?
Wild speculation:
The Sydney panel is all over Tuck's form. They know exactly who he's flogged this year (pretty much everybody). And they think he'll play. They're 80% certain of who he'll match up on (Kirk?). And they think the bench thing is a ruse. They've almost overruled the idea that he might get an odd matchup (O'Keefe?) because of it. Right now they think it's Tuck for Kirk. (And I think it's curtains for Kirk.)
Furthermore the Sydney scout has a mate at Richmond who assures him there's no change.
But Wallet has other ideas. Much as I bag other aspects of his game I think he's brilliant tactically and a master of stratagems. This might be one of them.
Suppose he wants to put some heat on Tuck's use. (Shane makes plenty of blues.) He still wouldn't drop him for Sydney. Suppose Terry is pissed off that Tuck couldn't beat a poor user like Watson when he was licensed to outplay him last week and he wants to put heat on him. He still wouldn't drop him for Sydney.
Never do one thing if you can do four as easily. Tuck is dropped for getting outpunched by an Esserden plodder, for not hurting Geelong after he'd disgraced Corey, for poor use and for matchup/tactical reasons.
What if Terry has a wild take on Sydney? That you can't beat them at the inside game so you let them have that one to themselves and heat their outside game? You need runners for that. Not insiders. At least not so many.
So TW with his many surprises, one- out: Tuck. He will have others because he thinks that he can pull off one of those tactical masterstrokes with flood/counter stuff like he did against Esserden in 2000 and Adelaide in 2006. (Small grounds, eh?)
This is a must win game for us. Wallace's future hangs on the result. He will surprise.
And after all that Tuck goes to Kirk. ;D
