Number Crunch: How Adelaide Crow Sam Jacobs has become one of the AFL’s best ruckmen

OVERLOOKED at the national draft and unwanted by Carlton, Crow Sam Jacobs has become one of the AFL’s best — and most durable — ruckmen. Andrew Capel reports.

Adelaide’s Sam Jacobs is tackled during their round nine clash against Brisbane at the Gabba.

SAM Jacobs plays football like he has a point to prove.

Overlooked at the 2006 national draft and unable to get a regular game at Carlton, the one-time Yorke Peninsula boy — who famously ran himself into the ground for 90 minutes at Ardrossan Oval in frustration at his draft snub — has gone from unwanted to one of the AFL’s premier big men.

And he is no one-hit wonder, having stood the test of time. Traded to Adelaide by the Blues at the end of 2010 after playing 17 games in four seasons as a rookie-list selection, Jacobs is, statistically, the fifth-best performed ruckman in the competition over the past seven years. He has turned the Crows’ trade to the Blues for draft picks 34 (Patrick McCarthy) and 67 (Andrew McInnes) — two players who are no longer in the league — into a one-sided laugher.

Since debuting for Adelaide against Carlton in round five, 2011, Jacobs has played 141 of a possible 144 games.

The Woodville-West Torrens product has missed just three matches through injury, including two last year and one in 2015. Among ruckmen, only North Melbourne’s Todd Goldstein has played more games than Jacobs since he has been at the Crows, with 142. Nicknamed “Sauce’’ because of his red hair, Jacobs ranks fifth in average ruck ranking points since 2011.

His average of 98.1 sits behind only Goldstein (110.2), Fremantle giant Aaron Sandilands (102.3), former Swan and now Giant Shane Mumford (101.2) and injured West Coast star Nic Naitanui (100.5).

The 29-year-old ranks third in average disposals (14) behind Brisbane’s Stefan Martin (18.2) and Collingwood’s Brodie Grundy (15.2) and fifth in hitout-to-advantage win percentage, with an average of 13.8. This season Jacobs, who has again carried the ruck load at Adelaide with cameo support from Josh Jenkins and Andy Otten, ranks as elite or above average in eight of the 10 key statistical categories for ruckmen. He is elite for disposals (15.6), uncontested possessions (8.8), marks (4.2), intercept marks (1.2), score involvements (6) and hitout win percentage (52.6) and above average for goals (0.3) and hitout-to-advantage win percentage (15.5), illustrating his all-round game.

Of the Crows’ 412 hitouts this year, Jacobs has 374 of them — ranked third in the league behind Sandilands (411) and Martin (381) — with the versatile Otten contributing 29, key forward Jenkins eight and key defender Lever one.

Adelaide coach Don Pyke has this season labelled Jacobs’ ruck work as “outstanding’’ and described his marking and follow up work against Hawthorn at the MCG in round two — he took six contested marks — as being “as good as I’ve seen in my time at the footy club’’.

The 202cm Jacobs, who was an All-Australian nominee in 2012 and 2014 — he averaged a career-high 115 ranking points in 2014 — says he feels that he is at the top of his game. “I feel that my centre bounce jumping has really improved and that I am launching at the ball with real purpose,’’ he said.

“And that has flowed into my marking. I’m attacking the ball in the air better than I ever have, which has enabled me to play with more presence.’’

Jacobs said his early draft snub had helped him become a better player.

“It has made me work harder because I’d almost felt that by not being selected at the national draft my career had been taken away from me at the start,’’ he said.

And it’s left rival clubs kicking themselves for not taking a punt on him when they had the chance.

Sam Jacobs is standing tall.