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What the hell? Bin the tank talk

2nd June, 2016
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The Melbourne Demons got in trouble for tanking, except that it wasn't really 'tanking'. (Photo: Lachlan Cunningham/AFL Media)
Expert
2nd June, 2016
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Did we step into some sort of football twilight zone this week? How else to explain some of the fierce, fervent and dare we say, fake, debates that suddenly seemed to engulf the football industry over the past few days.

Issues that no-one even knew they cared about, like tanking, draft structure, fixture changes, and entire competition overhaul into conferences have dominated the TV talk shows, radio airwaves and social media, with breathless hot takes and opinions thrown around like confetti.

But let’s just slow down a bit. Does anyone in the public actually care? Or are they just pretending because they’ve been told to? Where has this all come from?

It is a panic and frenzy constructed to fix something that isn’t remotely broken, the latest in a long line of media-only issues. They are created to cure mid-season media ADHD, because the game itself, on the ground, is not enough for them, and they’re incapable of anything more than “fingernail-deep analysis” as Ross Lyon likes to call it.

Some of the conversations belong in the plotline of the next Alice in Wonderland, as journalist after ex-player wanders down the rabbit-hole with their rampant ideas for change.

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Is so-called tanking even really an issue? A lot of club supporters like the idea of a higher draft pick, but if their side is a poor one, they’re going to get that anyway. Does it really matter if it’s two, three or four?

Ask delirious Carlton fans in the aftermath of their last-gasp win over Port if they’d be happier sacrificing those emotions for a higher position in a draft taking place six months down the track, to procure a player who may or may not have an impact at the club.

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Ask those Blues supporters if they’d like to be stripped of the hope that Brendon Bolton has injected into every crevice of Princes Park that has followed five wins in six weeks, including a sterling victory over Geelong with two men down. Football is still about grit, tenacity and heart. Emotion as much as business.

Does anyone doubt that Bolton and list manager Steven Silvagni are going to make good decisions for the future, once they are dealt their draft hand? That they’ll trade and draft with prudence and acumen, with the medium and long-term health of the club front of mind? And that it will be done so with the confidence and buoyancy of a winning culture and indomitable spirit being implemented?

Essendon and Fremantle are apparently playing for the number one draft pick this week. Will the winner be roundly disgraced and ridiculed? Or is it more likely that fans, players and club officials will celebrate after two months of lonely losses?

A handful of players may play in their first ever AFL win on the weekend. Do they deserve to have such a special memory sullied over a non-issue?

Yes, when clubs are out of finals contention they send players off early for end-of-season surgeries if they are required. Yes, they choose younger and inexperienced players to get a look at them under AFL heat.

This isn’t tanking, and anyone that calls it that is guilty of willful ignorance. It is nothing more than good business, and savvy list management.

Then we have to listen, bleary-eyed, to talk of draft lotteries. It should involve the bottom four only. Or the bottom six. Maybe bottom ten. It should be weighted this way. It should be structured that way. It should be held after a mid-season fixture re-structure.

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But any change that is going to be weighted towards the bottom team, right? So if a club is going to ‘tank’ to get a certain number one pick in the current system, they’ll still do so when they are mathematically favoured to get it.

And in the event of a set of teams playing off for the number one pick, a club could still make a business decision to drop from struggling in a middle tier to dominate a lower one.

I’ve got an idea. It’s radical, but hear me out.

If you’re the worst team in the league and finish 18th, you should get the number one draft pick. If you’re the second-worst team in the league and finish 17th, you should get the number two draft pick. If you’re the third-worst team in the league and finish 16th, you should – wait for it – get the number three draft pick.

This would go all the way down until the premiership team gets the number one pick.

Then, and this is where it gets really tricky, the 18th-ranked team gets to pick again, and so on and so forth.

Now, that is a fair system. It is reasonable. It is proportional. It is practical.

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The only thing it doesn’t have is enough bells and whistles to satisfy the bored dullards for whom the simple things in life are never enough, intent on pouring energy into fixing things that aren’t broken.

We’re not even halfway through the home-and-away season. We’re barely a third of the way through the football year. We’re witnessing the most even season of play in recent memory, and some of the most thrilling football too. Eight legitimate premiership chances. Fast play and high scoring.

There must be better things to talk about than nonsense solutions to non-existent problems.

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