- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Adrian Anderson has his head firmly planted in the sand on the issue of tanking. It’s been one week since departing Melbourne coach Dean Bailey said he played players out of position so that the club could gain draft picks, yet it’s obvious that the AFL’s operations boss won’t be taking any action.
“I had no hesitation at all in the first two years (of coaching Melbourne) in ensuring the club was well placed for draft picks,” Bailey said in his final press conference.
“I was asked to do the best thing by the Melbourne Football Club and I did it. I put players in different positions.”
Well all knew what those words meant. Except, of course, those in AFL House.
In response to the comments, Anderson said that the league would be concerned should it be presented with evidence of a club deliberately not trying to win in order to gain draft picks – it just doesn’t believe that describes what happened at the Demons.
It’s incredible. Not only because the rest of the footy world does believe that describes what happened, but because all Bailey’s comments led to was a phone call.
No investigation. No penalties. Just a phone call.
Anderson said of that phone conversation: “What he indicated to me is it’s all about development and playing players in different positions and also getting draft picks into the club, when players like Brock McLean and Cameron Bruce et cetera left.”
He added: “It’s quite a difficult one – what some people call tanking … is actually in a lot of ways what you’d expect a team to be able to try to do with a developing list. He (Bailey) was saying it was all in the category of the development, etc – his players were always trying and (there was) never any intent to lose.”
The problem here is that it’s obvious Bailey was doing more than your typical coach in charge of a developing list.
In the same breath as saying he made sure the club was well positioned for draft picks, Bailey said he said he played players out of position. How, exactly, does playing players out of position assist a club with draft picks?
It helps them lose games, or enough games to gain the priority pick.
This isn’t something that takes a phone call to decipher. It’s blindingly obvious.
While my Roar colleague Ben Somerford rightly points out that there are different degrees of so-called “tanking”, Anderson made it clear last week that were a club to be found to have deliberately not tried to win in order to gain draft picks the AFL would take action. If this is the criteria a club has to meet, then Melbourne have certainly met it.
Bailey’s comments last week confirm as much. Never mind that “the players were always trying” (that on its own is not a defence). Never mind that Bailey backtracked when the AFL operations boss was on the other end of the phone (after the press conference, what else did he need to say?).
Melbourne are guilty of the type of behaviour the AFL themselves say they would come down hard on. Yet the AFL are doing nothing about it. Turning a blind eye, if you will.
It makes you wonder what else they have been turning a blind eye to.
Even before last week, there were plenty of reasons to be suspicious of the Demons in 2009. Herald Sun journalist Jon Ralph outlined last week some of the bizarre tactics used in Melbourne’s Round 18 game against Richmond, which included the team’s best midfielder in the backline, a ruckman playing on a small forward, regular forwards dropped and regular defenders going forward.
Then there was the final round game against St Kilda, when James Frawley was taken off Nick Riewoldt for the final quarter despite the Demons still being a good chance of winning.
Adrian Anderson might think that this was the behaviour of any other club with a developing list. But those willing to look beyond convenient excuses will have a vastly different opinion.
The AFL’s credibility has been severely challenged by the events of the past week and its refusal to investigate a matter that to all impartial observers warrants an investigation.
This is the same AFL that suspended Heath Shaw for eight matches for having a bet on teammate Nick Maxwell to kick the first goal. This is the same AFL that says “everyone needs to have total confidence in the integrity of the game”.
Yet under its watch, it appears as though games have been played without reaching their true conclusion. And its response has been one of inaction.
The fans deserve so much better.