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Impact on the new club:
I understand why they made this trade, but honestly, I don’t like this trade for St Kilda.
The Saints have lost Josh Bruce, but key forward Max King is a supreme ready-made replacement. Even though he is yet to debut, anyone who followed his junior days and five VFL games know he’s ready to go.
The agile 2 metre forward has a freakish ability in the air and lethal kick for goal. Added to this, King has the endurance that echoes his childhood hero Nick Riewoldt. It may be ‘too much too soon’ for King to take some ruck sharing responsibility with Marshall. However, if you asked him and many at the club they’d tell you ‘he’s ready.’
A similar issue is in the ruck division. In 2019 Rowan Marshall thrived as the key and sole ruckmen for the club. For a ruck, he’s ranked elite in meteres gained, contested possessions, stoppage clearances and disposals. His work in the hitouts does require some work. This is where Ryder’s skills do come in benefit. That said, I would prefer to have let Marshall continue developing solo.
Impact on the old club:
Port Adelaide now have two clear choices when it comes to the set up of the side in 2020. Firstly play Scott Lycett as the primary ruckman and let Todd Marshall or Charlie Dixon play second fiddle when he needs a rest. Secondly, play him in tandem with Peter Ladhams in a similar way that Ryder & Lycett spent time doing in 2019.
If the POWER chooses option two, then the fantasy relevance of Scott Lycett is firmly impacted. However, if Lycett is allowed to be the primary ruck for 80% of the game, then he could well go on a similar scoring run as he did in the middle of 2019.
Fantasy Summary:
The arrival of Paddy Ryder coincides with the irrelevancy of Rowan Marshall in 2020. The moment you hear a coach say ‘share the load’ about playing multiple rucks, as a fantasy coach, you need to avoid the players.
With Ryder’s entrance into St Kilda, Rowan Marshall is now playing a split role and as such will not spend the majority of his time around the ball where his fantasy numbers showed he could dominate.
If Marshall were the sole ruck, he’d be a likely top three ruck candidate across all formats. Now, he becomes a poisoned pick if the ‘ruck share’ eventuates as I fear.
