From an on field perspective, the 2013 AFL season was one of the most boring on record.
From rounds 13-23 not a single team that made up the final top eight actually fell outside the eight except for Essendon, who would have been there but for some fishy supplements and a whole lot of finger-pointing.
Theoretically the final stages of the regular season should be the most exciting part of the season as teams fight desperately for a playoff berth.
However the last month of footy has too often become a stagnant bore as the top teams rest their marquee talent and the bottom teams lose interest or worse, ‘tank’.
It’s very hard to categorically prove that tanking exists. In essence, to accuse a club of tanking means you are questioning the very will and integrity of that club.
But is this fact, and not a coincidence?
From 1971 to 1980, years before the national draft, 300 matches were played in the last five rounds of the VFL and 59 were decided by 50 points or more.
From 2004-2013, 410 matches have been played in the last five rounds of the AFL and 118 have been decided by 50 points or more.
Teams appear to be waving the white flag before the finish line.
One excellent solution to terminate tanking has been to alter the order of the draft.
Instead of the worst team getting the best picks, the best of the worst teams gets first priority. In other words, the ninth-placed team goes first.
How about something more radical? What about a bonus point system similar to Super Rugby?
Currently in Super Rugby you earn a bonus point for scoring four tries in a game and if you lose finishing inside seven points.
In the 2013 Super 15, six teams changed position in the final round of the competition. This helped sustain interest in the competition and no doubt each team’s bonus points became a crucial factor.
How could an AFL bonus point system work? Here are some ideas.
At this stage a team could score six points from a game, four for the win, one for kicking 100 points and one for winning away.
What about something more drastic?
What if you doubled your points for beating a top eight team?
Teams would be seeded according to their finishing order in the previous season in the first round and then beating teams in the eight from rounds 2-22 affords you the chance to profit big time for wins against stronger teams.
What about an ever bigger bombshell?
Teams that are outside the eight at the start of a round are the only ones that can double their points for a win against a top eight side.
In other words if the ninth-placed team beat the eighth-placed team, the ninth-placed team could score up to ten points on the championship table.
But if the fifth-placed team beats the fourth-placed team, the fifth-placed team can only score a maximum of six points.
This system would give hope to even the very worst teams much longer into the season.
Ultimately teams that win all the time, like Hawthorn in 2013, would not suffer either.
Maybe I have been drinking too much over the summer, but tanking is the biggest disease in the game and any ideas to stop it should be explored.
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