Sun come Cat come Sun, Zac Smith is back at his initial club after struggling for game time over the past two seasons. The Queensland native proved too one-dimensional for the Cats coaching staff, failing to meaningfully contribute as a forward in a two-ruck setup. Expect Smith to provide dependable depth to the ruck stocks in case the ever-reliable Jarrod Witts requires a break. The Sun will provide veteran qualities at NEAFL, of little relevance to our fantasy squads.
Less than a zack
Sun come Cat come Sun, Zac Smith is back at his initial club after struggling for game time over the past two seasons. The Queensland native proved too one-dimensional for the Cats coaching staff, failing to meaningfully contribute as a forward in a two-ruck setup. Expect Smith to provide dependable depth to the ruck stocks in case the ever-reliable Jarrod Witts requires a break. The Sun will provide veteran qualities at NEAFL, of little relevance to our fantasy squads.
Barely worth a zack
When Rhys Stanley went down with injury late in 2018, the Cats turned to local prospect Ryan Abbott in preference of the established Zac Smith. While Smith had an impressive 2017 campaign with a near 85-point average, his role as first ruck has always been challenged and that ceiling is an outlier. As an out-of-favour ruckman, Smith will have to seriously impress during the preseason to earn a recall to the number one ruck position. Even if he does, competition will be fierce. He shouldn’t be on fantasy coaches' radars.
Smith is a common name
Zac Smith set new personal bests in all key ruck stats by a fair margin last season, and went almost 20 fantasy points better than 2016. He was probably the biggest beneficiary of the removal of third men up, plus he was given lead ruck duties with Rhys Stanley spending much more time forward. Marking is the biggest deficiency in his game. Media hype aside - and for some reason he attracts a fair bit of it - Smith is a fairly vanilla replacement-level ruck nowadays, beaten by the best but filling his boots against lesser opponents as well. He is definitely worth a pick up when he faces teams without a quality lead ruck. Other than that, he's not worth keeping on your roster.
