Collingwood ruckman Brodie Grundy recorded 10 of his side’s 28 clearances during Friday night’s loss to Essendon.
Grundy dominated in the air winning 28 more hit-outs, but the Bombers extracted 10 more clearances and scored 45 of their 63 points from stoppages.
Tim Watson believes Grundy must rectify this connectivity issue with his Magpies midfielders to ensure they capitalise on his ruck dominance.
“If he’s not getting hits to advantage and they’re not winning the stoppages, then there's two problems: It might be him or the other problem might be the connection that he has, and the midfielders aren’t connecting properly with him,” Watson told SEN Breakfast.
“The other part of his ruck work is his around the ground play which I don’t think he has a peer in the competition in that area.
“Why is it that you’ve got a great ruckman that wins control of the ball in the air but then you can’t take advantage of that?
“That’s their number one thing Collingwood, they like to be the number one clearance ball movement side around congestion and they’re just not doing that at the moment.”
2008 Brownlow Medallist Adam Cooney feels Grundy should be finding a Collingwood teammate more regularly.
“Brodie Grundy should be hitting more often than not to the advantage of his teammates,” Cooney said.
“It happens too often that Brodie Grundy is getting a nice clean hit-out and it doesn’t go to advantage, so that is a real issue.”
Grundy is second in the competition for hit-outs to advantage behind North Melbourne's Todd Goldstein.