Re: The rise and RISE of Marc Pittonet
Reply #1 –
Having Cripps at a rucks feet makes a huge difference, as did Judd.
Pittonet is reasonable in the center bounce, Phillips was very good in the bounce, Hampson was extraordinarily good at the center bounce, Kreuzer has never been a very good at the bounce, but he and Hampson had Judd. But all that is an assessment based on the effects of the tap and the tap alone, but it's not about the tap as the tap is only about 10 or 15% of the ruck's duty.
That by the way is exposed by the stats, against Gawn, Pittonet's CA of 15% out of 35% wins is 5.25%, or just a bit better than 1 good result out of every 20 attempts! So for 65 RCs that is a grand total of about 3-1/2 contested hit outs to an advantage for a whole game.
I've always argued the rucking deficits of the likes of Phillips and Casboult are not related to the tap, but it's all about what happens next. Casboult has recently improved the rest of ruck play dramatically, so he has gone up in my opinion.
Pittonet is OK but isn't a fraction of what Kreuzer offers around the ground, in possession chains, the positioning.
Another interesting tell is that only Kreuzer is talked about as a potential chop-out option for Cripps, that idea only exists because of everything other than the tap.
But the bloke who exposes the folly of these stats more than any other is Warnock, completely dominant in the tap but utterly worthless overall. They could call Warnock "The Tap King", and he'd go the same way, extinction!