The AFL's abolition of the "third man up" in the ruck contest sure sounded the alarm bells over summer.

Teams without a top-notch ruckman would be uncompetitive in a crucial part of the game, some said, and make the men who win the hit-outs more important than ever to a side's fortunes.

In itself, I reckon that was a good thing. With the distinctions between various positional players diminished by the year, the end of the third man into the ruck contests should actually help preserve at least one distinctive role, not to mention spare its exponents their share of injuries from being jumped all over.

But even those most concerned about the potential negative impact on their teams must be breathing a little easier today. Because if the results of round one illustrate anything, it is that winning the ruck battle doesn't necessarily - and last weekend hardly ever - mean winning the war.

Just one of the first nine winners of season 2017 - Melbourne - also won the ruck contests. Did that lead to dominance at ground-level? No. Six of the same nine winners lost both the hit-outs and the clearance count. And the team which was allegedly going to suffer the most from losing the third-man up lost both categories yet won their game more emphatically than anyone.

Geelong's Mark Blicavs has been tagged as the AFL's third-man-up specialist. Robbed of that string to his bow, the athletic tall instead found himself the nominated ruckman, along with Rhys Stanley, up against the might and power of Fremantle's Aaron Sandilands, after Geelong's No.1 ruckman Zac Smith was a late withdrawal.

The results were predictable, Fremantle thumping the Cats 63-18 in the hit-outs. The Cats were walloped for clearance wins, too, 34-48. And the scoreboard? Well, that showed a stunning 42-point win to Geelong.

"Zac was just a bit sore after a couple of heavy training sessions," Geelong coach Chris Scott said after the game. "We were umming and aahhing late into the week on that one and just decided on balance it wasn't the right thing to play him this week in what is going to be a long and challenging year.

"I don't think too many players are going to be able to stand toe-to-toe with Sandilands and get their hand to the ball too much. But the challenge is to present some difficulties to him and the Freo team in transition the other way."

Geelong's defensive pressure managed to do more than that, denying the Dockers space, forcing them into error, then using the ball much better themselves. It was a similar modus operandi to what helped the Western Bulldogs beat Collingwood last Friday night.

The Dogs were dominated in the ruck by the Magpies' Brodie Grundy and Mason Cox, losing the hit-outs 25-50. They lost the clearances convincingly, too, 25-43. Yet still ended up with a 14-point win.

With Jordan Roughead out injured and Tom Campbell still underdone, Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge was forced to go with two pinch-hitters in regular key forwards Tom Boyd and recruit Travis Cloke, the latter of whom won only one hit-out for the entire evening. In the end, though, it mattered little.

No wonder Beveridge at the post-game press conference playfully suggested in future he get a couple of his on-ballers to give a colleague a boost to contest the ruck, a la the lineouts in rugby.

"We haven't got a solution when it's not going that well as far as controlling where that ball goes in the ruck," he said. "Now it's making sure we are reading that better, and our methodology in there is better, because times have changed."

The premiership coach pondered even conceding the ruck completely. "The game isn't only played around hit-outs. We played the turnover game pretty well."

That they did, 80 per cent of their scores against Collingwood coming on the turnover, the second-highest figure for round one.

Beveridge's issue using pinch-hitting ruckmen could potentially be robbing Peter to pay Paul, with Boyd and Cloke taken out of the forward line equation when they're competing for hit-outs around the ground.

But the Bulldogs have already shown last year, and again on Friday night, that they can conjure enough goals from smaller forwards and their flexible squad of on-ballers.

And that was the problem for St Kilda on Saturday as they crashed to defeat against Melbourne, the Demons' ruck star Max Gawn the one big spanner in the works of the "ruckmen don't matter" theory.

Gawn smashed the Saints' Tom Hickey in the ruck battles and the Demons were right on top in the clearances. St Kilda's early defensive pressure completely nullified that advantage. But as that pressure fell away, so did the scoreboard lead, while the Saints, deprived of quick, clean delivery to their key forwards, couldn't find enough goals elsewhere.

While Nick Riewoldt fired, Josh Bruce and Tim Membrey were curbed, and Jade Gresham aside, the Saints didn't have enough of their on-ballers weighing in on the scoreboard. Something for coach Alan Richardson to ponder in the wash-up.

He won't be the only one doing plenty of pondering. Because, while it's very early days, the first tangible consequences of the abolition of the third man up ran pretty much contrary to what was expected.

TEAM | HIT-OUTS | CLEARANCES | RESULT

Richmond L W W

W Bulldogs L L W

Melbourne W W W

Port Adelaide L W W

Essendon L L W

Brisbane L L W

West Coast L = W

Adelaide L L W

Geelong L L W