On Thursday, the Power delisted a total of nine senior and rookie-listed players, including 21-year-old ruckman Fabian Deluca.
Deluca’s delisting, coupled with the forced retirement of Hugh Minson, leaves the club with just two proven ruckmen - Brendon Lade and Dean Brogan - who are both entering the twilight of their careers.
Untried youngster Jon Giles spent the majority of the 2008 season playing back-up ruck behind Jason ‘Buckets’ McKenzie at Central Districts, but is yet to play an AFL game. Giles, 20, showed significant improvement this year and was considered to have 'more upside' than Deluca.
Matthew Lobbe, who was recruited as a forward/ruckman last year, is the only other developing big man on Port Adelaide’s list, but is deemed to be a long-term project.
Football operations manager Peter Rohde conceded the Power’s lack of back-up ruckmen was an issue, but said the club would look to bolster its stocks in the November 29 draft.
“We probably made the call that we wanted to get some younger rucks into the system and bring them through as well and, obviously, in the draft we’ll be looking to supplement that area of our group,” Rohde said on Thursday.
“It [the ruck] is certainly an issue, but we’ve got other players on our list who have rucked in the past. Toby Thurstans has rucked a bit and we certainly believe that the number of ruckmen playing at AFL level is going to decrease.”
Rohde said the increased number of boundary umpires, rotations, and the speed of the game in general would make the recruiting of athletic, flexible ruckman vital in the years to come.
Vickery, 18, showed good speed and agility at NAB AFL Draft Camp in Canberra and also demonstrated an ability to play up forward during the 2008 NAB AFL Under-18 Championships, where he was named an All-Australian.
This year’s draft has been lauded for its mobile talls, which also include Nick Naitanui, Jack Watts, Shaun McKernan and Western Bulldogs father-son selection Ayce Cordy.
“We think that we need to develop more flexible, running-type ruckmen; Toby Thurstans has done that role in the past,” Rohde said.
“Dean and [Lade] have played together for a long period of time and we expect that to continue in the immediate future. We’ve been very lucky that Ladey has been able to play as a forward a lot of the time, so we don’t have to have one ruckman sitting on the bench.
“That’s not to say we won’t be trying to pick young ruckmen and be trying to develop them to eventually replace Dean and Ladey down the track.
“Certainly, that will be a big focus for us in the draft.”
