Andrew Phillips is one of those journeyman ruckman who never seems to quite cement a place at senior level, but he has found himself at the top of the depth chart for the moment at his third AFL club Essendon with Tom Bellchambers out of the selected 22. He comes up tonight against Todd Goldstein, arguably the greatest ruck over the past decade and still with a lot of strength in an old frame. Phillips' role will be to make up for his deficiencies in ruck with work around the ground, but it's a big job.
Andrew Phillips is one of those journeyman ruckman who never seems to quite cement a place at senior level, but he has found himself at the top of the depth chart for the moment at his third AFL club Essendon with Tom Bellchambers out of the selected 22. He comes up tonight against Todd Goldstein, arguably the greatest ruck over the past decade and still with a lot of strength in an old frame. Phillips' role will be to make up for his deficiencies in ruck with work around the ground, but it's a big job.
Don't import Phillips
Now at his third AFL club, Andrew Phillips has always suffered from low job security with his place on the ruck depth chart never higher than second. At Essendon, he sits well behind the ageing Tom Bellchambers who is very susceptible to the odd soft tissue injury, so he'll probably get a handful of games in relief which won't be startable. The ruck baseline is pretty high these days, which means even when Phillips is given first ruck duties for the occasional game as he was five times last year at Carlton, his scores rarely go far into startable ranges if at all. This long-term trend is highly unlikely to change at club number three, making him unworthy even as a Bellcho handcuff.
Back up, back up
2018 was Andrew Phillips's best statistical return across seven AFL-listed years, which isn't saying much as he got very few stats outside his average of 28 hit outs in five senior games. Phillips is very firmly third in the depth chart, with no prospect at this late stage of regaining his spot in the ones unless there are a raft of injuries. It's Carlton, so that's not impossible. Ignore.
Phillips blunted
A stress reaction in Andrew Phillips' left foot started and ended his 2017, keeping him to only one AFL game and six in the reserves. Phillips is now behind both Matthew Kreuzer and Matthew Lobbe in the depth chart, and never gets enough footy to be startable anyway.
