AFL mustn’t turn a blind eye to tanking farce
Roar Rookie By Widget, 3 Aug 2012 Widget is a Roar Rookie
- Tagged:
- AFL, Andrew Demetriou, brock mclean, Melbourne Demons, tanking
AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou speaks to the media. AAP Iamge/Julian Smith
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As a passionate Adelaide Crows supporter and lover of AFL, it is disheartening to have tanking splattered across the news again. Thankfully the debate has taken place at the same time as the Olympics and thus hasn’t received as much coverage as usual.
I admire Brock McLean for standing up for what he believes in and coming out and telling the world more about what Melbourne did to secure draft picks.
There are two key things that have frustrated me about the AFL and the public’s reaction to this.
Firstly, hearing people say that they can’t believe that coaches would tell players to go out and not try their hardest really annoys me.
People need to realise that AFL footballers always give their best. Coaches don’t tell their players not to try, but they tell them to do things differently.
They might order a player to try different techniques in contests or they might put a player in a position that is blatantly wrong.
Secondly the naive attitude of the AFL towards tanking is what has brought the game to the situation it is in now.
Implementing a system that rewards the team that comes last on the ladder with the top draft pick was always going to cause trouble.
The former priority pick rule, which saw Melbourne pick up both Tom Scully and Jack Trengove was a farce. If it wasn’t bad enough to reward the team that came dead last, to give them an extra top pick if they only won a certain number of games was a joke.
If Adrian Anderson, Gillon McLachlan and Andrew Demetriou have even half a brain between them, they will change the draft system and punish Melbourne and Carlton for what they did.
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The Crowd Says (27) | Page 1 of Comments
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- AFL, Andrew Demetriou, brock mclean, Melbourne Demons, tanking
August 3rd 2012 @ 5:47am
Bee Bee said | August 3rd 2012 @ 5:47am | Report comment
I agree completely Mr Widget.
To reward teams for stinking wreaks. Even if you take away the word reward and use the word compensate. It stinks.
Draft system needs a re-think. Competetion is too lop sided. For some time there have been 3 tiers. Contenders. Middle Men and the Stinkets. With very little movement between tiers. WCE are one notable exception, I can’t think of many others.
Tanking is so difficult to prove and yet so obvious. Its the Bosun Higgs particle of sport. You would need to build the equivalent of a large Hadron Collider to see evidence it exists but some old guy knew it existed for years.
P.S. I love Crows. (a little bit.)
August 3rd 2012 @ 8:46am
Kasey said | August 3rd 2012 @ 8:46am | Report comment
More match fixing**. Why oh why can’t the all mighty AFL see the obvious solution(NBA-style draft lottery) and implement it? they seemingly can foresee every other problem in the game and administer away with glee from under docklands stadium, their stubborn refusal to do the obvious here is a sign. pointing to what, I’m not sure, but it means definitely something.
** Oxford English Dictionary
Definition of match-fixing
noun
[mass noun]
(in sport) the action or practice of dishonestly determining the outcome of a match
August 3rd 2012 @ 9:50am
GCS said | August 3rd 2012 @ 9:50am | Report comment
Ok, if that’s the definition of match-fixing, then there has been none of that in the AFL. The outcome of matches has not been pre-determined.
August 3rd 2012 @ 10:03am
Kasey said | August 3rd 2012 @ 10:03am | Report comment
How do you figure? MFC went into some game not chasing a win, when one party in a 2-horse race isn’t trying to win, there can be only one outcome, the result has been predetermined. and that is NOT fair dinkum.
August 3rd 2012 @ 10:20am
GCS said | August 3rd 2012 @ 10:20am | Report comment
Melbourne got beaten by a goal after the siren, you can’t pre-determine that. The players were trying, but it seems like the MFC hierarchy wanted the team to lose. Won’t be the easiest thing to prove, but you can’t call it match-fixing.
August 3rd 2012 @ 11:50am
Brewski said | August 3rd 2012 @ 11:50am | Report comment
Kacey, are you suggesting that AFL players have been involved in match fixing similar to the 2006 Italian soccer betting scandal, or the German referee that attempted to fix German 2nd division matches, or Bruce Grobbelar etc etc etc etc etc etc
Alleged tanking for a high draft pick seems to pale into insignificance compared to the above.
August 3rd 2012 @ 12:13pm
Kasey said | August 3rd 2012 @ 12:13pm | Report comment
What has football got to do with it Brewski, are you incapable of debating the issue without hanging shyte on another sport?Pls try to spell my name correctly, it’s only courtesy you see.
August 3rd 2012 @ 12:19pm
Brewski said | August 3rd 2012 @ 12:19pm | Report comment
Bit touchy aren’t we, ?, i thought we were talking about match fixing and football?, its only fair to bring up relevant points and compare.
Wouldn’t you agree ?.
August 3rd 2012 @ 2:08pm
The High Shot said | August 3rd 2012 @ 2:08pm | Report comment
He/she really can’t. He/she deflects and gets personal. Pretty desperate behaviour but the truth can be painful.
Brewski if the AFL investigates this problem honestly they can really lance a boil and restore faith in the competition. Surely that’s ultimately a good thing?
August 3rd 2012 @ 4:40pm
Brewski said | August 3rd 2012 @ 4:40pm | Report comment
@ The high shot, your name belies you, although a high shot can probably in most circles be considered a low shot !, the only reason posters such as yourself and Kacey are on here is to ‘have a go’, if you were a genuine poster with genuine points, both negative and positive, then i would imagine your posts would be received warts and all.
As i suggested earlier, back to Birchgrove Oval, to man the barricades, i think i saw a Sherrin being bounced along the road in Balmain.
August 3rd 2012 @ 6:57pm
JVGO said | August 3rd 2012 @ 6:57pm | Report comment
How did your trip across the continent to address Leichhardt Council regarding Birchgrove Oval issue tuen out Brewski? And how was your explanation to them received as to how essential it was to the peace of mind of citizens in Perth like yourself that the 1600 soccers players be shifted so that the 200 AFL players could take their place?And what about your guided tour of the magnifcent AFL sites at Breakfast Point, Blacktown, Manuka and Wagga strike you. Were they as good as the AFL had it cracked up to be for you folks who are financing the whole venture. Maybe you should claim your expenses to the AFL’s account or something Your report can be called across the Nullabor to Birchgrove and back.
August 4th 2012 @ 12:22am
Brewski said | August 4th 2012 @ 12:22am | Report comment
Still fighting the good fight against the evil Sherrin JVGO, and still confusing your facts as usual. LOL.
Carry on, the anti AFL save Birchgrove society may strike a medal in your honour.
August 4th 2012 @ 1:01am
JVGO said | August 4th 2012 @ 1:01am | Report comment
And what facts would they be Brewski? As I say I am just amazed by your concern over there in Perth regarding what we do with our community facilities here in Sydney. i simply fail to see what business it is of yours. The fact is I live in the district and you live a couple of thousand miles away. When I begin to advise you what you should or should not do in your community, or when I even begin to care, then you can begin to act self righteous.
August 4th 2012 @ 9:50am
Brewski said | August 4th 2012 @ 9:50am | Report comment
@ JVGO, the facts are … that AFLNSW never asked to use Birchgrove, the council states that in their report, nobody was being kicked off anywhere, and AFLNSW particpation numbers were never fudged.
Maybe manning the barricades at Birchgrove has limited your ability to think outside that shire but it made national news.
August 3rd 2012 @ 12:26pm
Gwils said | August 3rd 2012 @ 12:26pm | Report comment
Brewski
Again I must humbly disagree.
Soccer has a glorious history of match fixing, all over the world, unparalleled.
To put the AFL in the same company as soccer is to sully soocer’s fine reputation in match fixing which has been earned over many decades.
The AFL has a long way to go.
August 3rd 2012 @ 6:03pm
Kasey said | August 3rd 2012 @ 6:03pm | Report comment
So my opinion that this ‘tanking’ euphemism you’ve allowed yourselves to use to gloss over the fact that some teams cheat the system is a huge furphy is an invalid opinion why exactly? You’ve built up in your mind that the AFL is a perfect system, but as soon as someone dares to disagrees with your opinion, you start flinging mud at other sports. “We’re not that bad..look at Soccer” was the cry earlier. which totally misses the point that how many times will teams have to come forward and admit to cheating the system before the AFL does something about it? What on Earth could possibly be the reason why the AFL refuses stubbornly to introduce a draft lottery? They have never been shy about messing with the very fabric of the game to engineer it to where it is today. Why stop at this obvious improvement to the game?
August 3rd 2012 @ 6:14pm
Titus said | August 3rd 2012 @ 6:14pm | Report comment
AFL–the badmington of Australian football.
August 3rd 2012 @ 6:25pm
Brewski said | August 3rd 2012 @ 6:25pm | Report comment
Titus, a good troll, can also spell well, you can do neither.
August 3rd 2012 @ 6:35pm
Titus said | August 3rd 2012 @ 6:35pm | Report comment
Inappropriate/unnecessary use of punctuation Brewski.
August 3rd 2012 @ 8:47am
Ian Whitchurch said | August 3rd 2012 @ 8:47am | Report comment
The system has already been changed – priority picks dont exist any more.
The coach who did it at Melbourne has been fired, and that club is now rebuilding after the failed tanking-enabled rebuild.
There is broad agreement that tanking did bad things for the culture of Melbourne, and I very much doubt a team in rebuild will do it again.
There is also the problem of the grey area between tanking and getting games into kids, or sending your good players off to surgery so they can be recovered in time for the next offseason.
Finally, attempting to even up the compeitition does indeed lead to trouble – but its a different type of trouble if all but the most successful and therefore richest and therefore strongest and therefore most successful clubs are there to make up the numbers.
August 3rd 2012 @ 11:45am
Widget said | August 3rd 2012 @ 11:45am | Report comment
Dean bailey did not get fired for tanking, decisions to tank were made above him in the hierachy and he had to enforce what was wanted. He was fired for poor results over an extended period.
August 3rd 2012 @ 12:40pm
Ian Whitchurch said | August 3rd 2012 @ 12:40pm | Report comment
Widget,
Yup. The tanking didnt work – the marginal increase in the quality of their early picks wasnt worth the damage it did to the clubs culture.
August 3rd 2012 @ 12:23pm
Hamish said | August 3rd 2012 @ 12:23pm | Report comment
There is tanking every year if your team cant make the finals – resting star players, playing kids and playing people out of position are tanking…
Its the other melbourne – Storm – who are tanking…
August 3rd 2012 @ 2:05pm
The High Shot said | August 3rd 2012 @ 2:05pm | Report comment
How successful the alleged tanking was to Melbourne’s (and/or others’) lists and subsequent performance in later seasons seems to me to be utterly irrelevant.
It’s like saying the bank robber who got away with the loot but was then robbed himself and ended up with nothing shouldn’t do any time.
August 3rd 2012 @ 2:19pm
Gwils said | August 3rd 2012 @ 2:19pm | Report comment
THS
With whom are our sympathies? The poor ol’ pathetic robber who got bashed up and robbed, or the stinking corrupt capitalist he tried to rob, all of his wealth coming from slave labour?
I say to you: viva la revolucion!
August 3rd 2012 @ 5:18pm
Australian Rules said | August 3rd 2012 @ 5:18pm | Report comment
No player would ever try NOT to win.
However, the same may not be true of the coach whose team is certain to finish last, and a loss guarantees him 2 priority draft picks, instead of 1.
So I understand why a coach might be tempted – I certainly don’t condone it, but I understand it to a degree.
That said, it’s difficult to know exactly when ‘tanking’ is occurring.
When a club is struggling and certain to finish last, do you persist with your older players who aren’t getting the job done, or do you give some of the younger players a go…mix it up, and provide them with precious game-time and experience?
Ultimately, I think younger players should only get played when a) they’re good enough, or b) another player’s injury creates an opportunity.
If it looks like Melbourne ‘tanked’ by playing too many kids at the expense of their older and better players, I’m still not sure how we punish them. The decision to ‘tank’ is made by the coach, and he’s gone. The admin and most of the board are gone. Many of the players too (including, ironically, Tom Scully who is the player Melbourne drafted via their ‘tanking’).
So how does the AFL punish them?
I’m not sure they can. NBA lottery for the bottom 5 teams would seem to be one insurance measure against it.
August 4th 2012 @ 6:12am
amazonfan said | August 4th 2012 @ 6:12am | Report comment
You can’t punish Melbourne, unless you’re willing to punish all the other clubs who tank. Melbourne may be in the news this week, however it is simply hypocritical nonsense to single out Melbourne, and talk about punishing them, instead of punishing every other club who tanks. Carlton and Collingwood tanked, Terry Wallace admitted that he didn’t try to win a match which could have cost Cotchin if the Tigers won etc… So, you ask how does the AFL punish Melbourne? Well, they can start by punishing the other clubs to have tanked.
Tanking is a serious issue. However, to single out Melbourne ignores the bigger picture, and that is that if every other club was in the same position (as Carlton, Collingwood and Richmond were in at different times), almost of all them would have tanked. The blame does not lie with Melbourne, but with the system. The system needs to change. Blaming, or punishing, Melbourne is like giving a life ban to a drug taker at the 2012 Olympics but ignoring the drug takers at the 2008 games.