BRETT GEEVES: Noble pursuit? Why North's flirtation with a priority pick is anything but

Is it possible David Noble was selected as the Head Coach of North Melbourne because of his administrative experience in successfully receiving a priority pick for Brisbane in the 2016 Draft?

It took him no more than six months in his first AFL head coaching gig, to publicly suggest that his new club deserved a priority pick, and that he would not just accept it, but would make love to it.

“I’d love one, absolutely I’d love one,” Noble said. “Why wouldn’t we? If we were in a situation where that mechanism can be activated, I’m all for it. If it helps us and we feel we’re entitled to that mechanism being activated, absolutely.”

At the time, I can remember thinking it was a sloppy message to be sending your supporter base, and players, as a new head coach; that only eight rounds into your coaching tenure, you’d given up on your current list ever being any good and were publicly requesting the worst type of AFL hand-out.

More appropriate answer: “We’ll do everything we can to avoid receiving a priority pick, because as soon as you go down that path, you’ve hit rock bottom, the very end of the death pit and into the tanking lows of the Demons and clubs who have desperately wanted to exploit an easy hand-out system.

(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

“As soon as you put your vision in that direction, it is impossible to expect your players to meet a higher standard, to fight for more. Celebrating losses? That’s not what our club stands for, we are SHINBONERS, and we don’t want to be remembered as the North Melbourne team who forgot that. But thanks anyway”.

That mechanism of priority pick assistance Noble mentions was tweaked in 2012 when all 18 clubs voted to revamp the criteria to avoid further distastefulness; after the Demons went full Philadelphia 76ers from 2013-2015, and gained access to Tom Scully, who left the club for an expansion club after only two years.

And whilst the AFL investigated Melbourne for tanking, they only found them guilty of “acting in a manner prejudicial to the interests of the competition” and handed down sanctions and fines that were more in line with a “guilty of tanking” verdict.

Masterminds of the Acting In a Manner Prejudicial To The Interests Of The Competition Mission, Melbourne Demons coach,  Dean Bailey, and General Manager of Footy, Chris Connolly, were given lengthy suspensions and the club was fined $500,000.

In the now, several factors determine whether a club is offered a priority draft pick:

• The number of premiership points that a club has earned through wins over a period of years, is taken into consideration, with greater weight being offered to more recent seasons.
• A club’s point percentage over a period of years is also taken into consideration. Again, there is an emphasis on recent seasons for weighting.
• Finals appearances and premiership wins in recent seasons are also considered.
• Injury rates in each relevant season.
• Expansion clubs who stink.

And so no club can again attempt the Acting In a Manner Prejudicial To The Interests Of The Competition Mission, the formula for priority picks is kept confidential by the AFL Commission.

Astonishingly, Tom Browne, the Chief Football Reporter for the channel who pays an inordinate amount of money to be the broadcaster of choice for free to air football, announced his belief over the weekend that Essendon should be in line for a priority pick before North Melbourne.

(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

It is as if he forgot he was peeing in a coke bottle for a couple of months while he camped outside James Hird’s house as the AFL investigated Hird and Essendon for the most sinister of all charges in any sport: Drugs. A doping regime.

Think about it Tom. Why would Essendon be battling to keep up with their rivals over the last few years? Would it have anything to do with the draft picks that were taken away from them, the $2 million in cash, and the wide-spread suspensions across the leaders of their football department in the aftermath of being found guilty of the implementation of a doping regime?

Sure, list management and a sloppy coaching hand-over hasn’t helped – two first rounders for Dylan Shiel and a seven-year deal has backfired; Devon Smith cost a first and has been cruelled by injuries and a shifting role after winning the clubs B&F in his first year; Stringer came at the cost of multiple picks in the early second round, and seems to be always injured; but largely, they’re three or four quality players short from the top end of a draft board. Don’t underestimate the impact losing those picks is having on Essendon now.

The AFL handing a priority pick to Essendon would be a recognition of fault that their sanctions were over the top and have had a bigger impact on the long term than planned.  

That ain’t happening, Tom.

There are two key things to take from the above Essendon words: WADA don’t f–k about. And the AFL won’t ever admit they got that one wrong. Or anything wrong.

As for North Melbourne, if they continue to waste Jack Ziebell in the forward line, don’t get Jed Anderson back on the park and deploy Todd Goldstein into run-with-defensive-roles on the opposition’s quickest midfielders; then the AFL should grant David Noble his lust-wish of a priority pick.

And that pick should be Tom Scully.

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