By Best Clubman
July 26th 2008 @ 1:45am
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There’s no tanking in AFL? Demetriou must be dreaming
AFL boss Andrew Demetriou must have a Big Brother complex. By that, I mean he must be of the opinion that he can tell the public that two plus two equals five and have them believe it.
Despite overwhelming evidence and public opinion to the contrary, Demetriou insists the AFL does not have a problem with clubs tanking matches towards the end of seasons in order to gain a higher draft pick at season’s end.
This seems logical given the current draft system which awards draft picks in reverse order of ladder position. Yet Demetriou and the AFL deny the current system is flawed and expects the public to swallow it.
The Herald-Sun, the preferred paper for those with less than three years formal education, has just conducted its annual footy fans survey, with the results showing that 77 percent of respondents believe tanking is a reality.
These results from the Herald-Sun readership base need to be interpreted with caution given that 82 percent of respondents misspelled their name, 41 percent tried to eat the survey, and Brendan Fevola turned his into a pirate’s hat via a series of advanced origami techniques, wearing it to training with an eye patch and a pair of frilly trousers while drunk last Tuesday.
Nevertheless, the survey results provide Demetriou with some food for thought.
The results on the fans’ opinions on tanking are a massive rise from the previous year’s survey, when only 43 percent indicated that tanking was occurring. This increase is most probably due to respondents having had an extra twelve months to watch Carlton – the greatest beneficiary of the league’s losers-first draft policy over the past five years.
Simon Wiggins is about to play his 100th game. That is no accident.
In addition to the awarding of draft picks in reverse order from ladder position, rests the issue of priority picks, whereby teams who have struggled for several consecutive years gain draft picks before the draft, providing them with the chance to pick the nation’s best young players before the other clubs get to participate in the draft.
This is clearly an unfair system that rewards incompetence like an unemployment benefits scheme that provides philosophy graduates, Daryl Somers, and other unemployed persons with increased payments the longer they have been unemployed.
Of course, the priority pick system is not without its flaws when you consider that Paul Hasleby and Josh Fraser, the AFL’s answer to a Ford Falcon – a large car with the power of a Barina – were both priority picks for Fremantle and Collingwood respectively in 1999.
Unbelievably, Demetrious isn’t buying any of the tanking debate.
“I find the whole conversation pathetic. It demeans our clubs. I have never subscribed to the theory. There is never much difference between pick one, three or four, particularly in this year’s draft,” he said, without obviously talking to anyone from Carlton, who selected Luke Livingston with pick four of the 2000 draft after St. Kilda and Collingwood had snapped up Nick Riewoldt, Justin Koschitzke and Alan Didak with the first three picks.
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Rich_daddy said | July 28th 2008 @ 8:53am | Report comment
Yeah I agree with you on the tanking issue. I think a solution would be to hand out priority picks based purely on ladder position rather than wins/losses. I think if a team finishes at the bottom they are the worst side regardless of how many wins they have had for the season. This could remove some of the tanking speculation as if a side is a couple games behind the next team on the ladder then they have nothing to lose by going for the win.
The prioty system is not perfect, but the concept I think is good as it stops one team dominating year in year out and combined with the salary cap prevents the richest clubs from buying a premiership. You just have to look at the soccer competitions in Europe to realise how boring it is for the same teams to be dominating every team, particulalry when you support a lesser team.
Michael C said | July 28th 2008 @ 6:18pm | Report comment
Actually – -
let’s work out just WHAT IS TANKING.
Just what does constitute this ‘overwhelming’ evidence?
There’s a lot of opinion by fans. But – - most fans are biased, ignorant, out of touch, misguided and one dimensional.
I still wonder – - –
is it tanking for Port Adelaide to save Chad Cornes from possible further injury – - he’s carrying about 3 ailments requiring surgery. So, he’s now sent off early in preparation for next year. This year – - they’ve given up!!! They’re tanking.
Or are they.
If you get too pedantic about it all, Essendon have been tanking most of the year, but – - – now, having got full games into a lot of young players – - out comes Essendon and win 5 or the last 6 and – - they have a whole lot more momentum going into next year than some 18 yr old number 1 draft pick that may take 4-5 years careful nurturing to become a ‘match winner’.
I reckon this tanking stuff is a little overblown.
I still don’t reckon Carlton had any real say in it last year – - once Nick Stevens and Cameron Cloke had gone down, they had no ruck, no ’star midfielder’ – - simple as that. Even this year, it took them 6 wks to settle in and start looking likely – AND THAT WAS WITH JUDD too.
What HAS been learned in recent times is that a focus on the rookie list can produce as many top quality players as a focus on the number 1 and 2 draft picks.
A club like North Melbourne illustrates that bottoming out isn’t critical in rebounding to top 4 contention…….
……winning a premiership…..well, in a 16 team competition, the best you can really do is aim for the 2nd last week of the season, and, then, luck might just happen.
Heck, even Geelong are the result of about a 8-10 year list development – including traded players such as Cam Mooney and Brad Ottens.
Actually, we should do that – - look at the drafting record of the Geelong team last year vs perhaps St.Kilda who seemed to ‘tank’ to gain access to Goddard, Riewoldt and Kosi. (again though, I’m not sure that St.Kilda had the quality to do anything about it, they simply had hung on to the carrot of ‘97 perhaps a couple of years too long).