There’s a bit of groupthink going around this year that Kurt Tippett has been disappointing for Sydney. To wit, Wayne Carey suggesting he be trade bait and that he’s not delivering. Then there’s the usually okay Sydney Fairfax footy reporter Andrew Wu dismissing Longmire’s defence of Tippett. Most recently we have had this effort from Matthew Lloyd on Footy Classified:

(source)

I can only assume Lloyd is taking way too hot a take from Saturday night which saw Tippett playing with a broken hand in Sydney’s worst loss since 1998 and, unsurprisingly, struggling a bit.

But hey, aside from Tippett, what do all these other guys Lloyd names as disappointing have in common? Between them, they’ve racked up about half the hitouts Tippett has managed in 2015, while kicking substantially less goals per game.

Tippett’s role being misunderstood

We are here to argue that Kurt Tippett is not just going okay, but that he’s wrongly being judged as a forward alone. On that measure, Tippett’s 1.8 goals per game is certainly down on his previous output for Sydney of 2.65 goals per game. He’s clearly producing less as a forward from the heady heights of two half seasons on Coleman pace.

However, pivotally, Tippett barely rucked in 2013 or 2014, the Swans preferring Mumford and Pyke in 2013 and only using Tippett sparingly in relief of Pyke, Derickx and even Reid in 2014.

This year, there’s no set “twin towers structure” with Tippett and Franklin. Tippett is an outright second ruck option, a role he hasn’t previously played since leaving Adelaide where he served as a more sparing second option relieving Jacobs. He’s had about half as many hit-outs as Pyke, suggesting he’s taking at least a third of the ruck contests. Correspondingly, Tippett’s goalscoring has dropped off by about a third this year in line with his apparently spending a third of gametime in the ruck. Which is unsurprising really.

Tippett is now a genuine dual role ruck-forward, and despite appearing to be performing below his best on goalkicking, as a ruck-forward he is actually in rare statistical territory. More than that, judged on the role he’s actually playing in 2015, Kurt Tippett is quite clearly the best ruck-forward in the competition 2015 and the best since at least 2012.

On ruck-forwards

The genuine dual ruck-forward is a relatively rare position even in the modern game. If we define it as someone who takes a decent share of the ruck work and also regularly scores goals, that’s not a huge cohort of players.

Below is a list of every player who in 2015 averages at least 0.5 goals per game and 10 hitouts per game:

This isn’t a huge list, and it shows Tippett way out in front as a ruck-forward dual role player. His goalscoring output is nearly double any other ruck-forward and his hitouts per game is somewhere around Rhys Stanley or Ben McEvoy He gets a few less hitouts than David Hale, but kicks a lot more goals. He’s a much more potent forward than Paddy Ryder.

As a goalkicker, Tippett’s 1.8 goals per game means he’s been as effective as Matthew Pavlich this year, ahead of Drew Petrie, just behind Nick Riewoldt. That’s reasonable company.

Going back across years, let’s compare recent ruck-forward seasons to Tippett’s 2015. For the next table I’ve raised the goalscoring bar to 0.8, and limited us to players who have completed at least half of the season. I’ve also adjusted to 2015 level outputs. This accounts for the greater number of hitouts and less goals per game in 2015 compared to previous years (in 2012 there were 108% of this year’s goals per game and 90% of the hitouts):

Tippett’s nearest comparisons are 2012 Jarryd Roughhead who rucked less effectively or frequently, and Tom Bellchambers who turns out to have had a seriously underrated 2013. Also of note is 2015-model Nic Naitanui who emerges as an amazing weapon for West Coast, shouldering the primary ruck burden with not much drop off in forward potency, still as productive as many more genuine ruck-forwards.



Let’s emphasise this. If you’re comparing Kurt Tippett to other players, you should be comparing to like players. Those are, in 2015, players who take significant ruck duties as well as score goals. Tippett is the most productive goalkicker among players who ruck.



Can Tippett actually ruck?

Kurt Tippett isn’t the best ruckman going, but he’s providing a decent contest. Of his average 15.7 hitouts per game, he’s getting about 24% effective hitouts, which is reasonable for a stat that seems to max-out around 33% in 2015 for anyone with a decent sample size. He is, crucially, not serving as a mere dummy or decoy who can’t actually ruck. He wins a share of hitouts.

Specifically, Tippett’s effective hitout to total hitout percentage is about the same as Ivan Maric, Cameron Wood, David Hale or Stefan Martin. He could best be described as workmanlike in the ruck. He’s not a weapon at a stoppage, but he is at least average among current ruckmen. He’s improving his team in the ruck too. Sydney are 5th in hitout differentials this year (+6 per game) up from 17th (-9.7 pg) last year. They’re back at Mumford era numbers (4th, +6.6 pg in 2013) with Tippett doing ruck work.

The last time Tippett rucked nearly this much was 2009 in support of Ivan Maric, and he didn’t get the sort of hitouts per game he is getting now. As a late convert to serious ruck time, Tippett may have improvement in him here. Specifically, in researching this article we also discovered that on average, 28-year-old ruckmen can improve a little further in their 29th and 30th years before dropping off.

Roles and structures

In 2015 Kurt Tippett is elite in a relatively rare, difficult, and much misunderstood role. The second ruck/forward is one of the most structurally bound positions in football and is very difficult to produce elite numbers in. Such a player’s contribution is not simply what the ruck-forward directly contributes, which is still plenty, it’s his impact on other aspects of the team.

In supporting a single workmanlike ruckman, a player such as Tippett reduces the burden on the team as a whole of maintaining ruck contest competitiveness. Tippett eliminates the need for a second pure ruckman, or for driving a sole ruck like Pyke or Nankervis to absolute exhaustion and injury, or for simply sacrificing ruck competitiveness altogether and compensating elsewhere as Geelong and the Bulldogs have attempted.

Tippett remains a potent forward threat, drawing defenders away from Franklin and potentially Goodes or Reid or Rohan.

Either way, Tippett’s dual role means he reduces the need for tall structural players, allowing more space for other kinds of players. All things being equal, a ruck-forward as good as Tippett is really worth; his own direct output; the contribution he makes to unsettling opposition defences; and the extra midfielder his existence allows in place of another tall.

Alternatively, his new role may allow the retention in the 22 of both a roaming Adam Goodes and swingman Sam Reid, either of whom may be pushed out in favour of more ruck relief, if Tippett were still playing as a more pure forward putting up 2.5 goals per game.

Is he worth it?

Is he worth the money he’s getting? Sydney reportedly paid a lot of money for him, but the thing is, Tippett on current form in his role is a nearly unique value proposition.

The nearest comparisons would be Ryder, Naitanui or Roughhead on the open market as free agents, or David Hale four years ago. Among younger players, the emerging comparisons are Charlie Dixon or Scott Lycett. But of course wile some are more effective at getting hitouts, none of those ruck-forwards have scored as heavily as Tippett, and goals are just about the most valuable thing in football - hence the premium on big forwards such as Boyd, Cameron, Franklin whenever contracts are being settled.

What about cap space and player retention? Not really an issue. He’s now 3 years into a 4 year deal, the salary cap is rising faster than expected, nearly all of Sydney’s big names have been re-signed til at least the end of next year. Tippett’s squeeze has already mostly been absorbed. Effectively, in terms of cap management, Sydney could be said to have switched Mumford’s superior ruck work for Tippett’s positional flexibility.

If Kurt Tippett is not a fair value, he’s probably near to it. In previous years at Sydney as a fairly pure forward he kicked 2.65 goals per game, which is Coleman pace. Now he is playing as a ruck-forward, spending perhaps 35% or 40% of his gametime in the ruck, cutting down his goalscoring opportunities. Among AFL players who are adequate in a decent number of ruck contests, no other player is kicking nearly two goals per game.

Right now, he’s currently literally the best in the business at what he does. Players who can perform as a second ruck while still producing nearly two goals per game barely exist in the current era.

-S

