North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson says his team are “hell-bent” on winning against the Gold Coast Suns, but there’s a big reason that’s hard to believe.
He’s 85 kg, 185 cm and his name’s Harley Reid.
No North Melbourne supporter wants their team to win when they take on Saturday afternoon. It’s a problem for the AFL – an elephant in the room.
The Kangaroos shouldn’t have to try to lose after all, they’ve lost 20 games in a row while they were presumably trying to win. If North Melbourne were playing GWS or the Western Bulldogs, teams with finals at stake, their lack of motivation to win would be a huge issue for the integrity of the competition. The league already has a compromised fixture, with clubs playing eleven opposition teams once and six twice.
Alastair Clarkson. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
The accusation of tanking isn’t one clubs take lightly. In 2012, then Melbourne coach Dean Bailey and General Manager Chris Connolly were found guilty of charges relating to the club tanking games late in the 2009 season, in order for their club to receive a priority pick. There is little doubt of what was going on in the greater scheme of things yet somehow, the club was found not guilty of tanking.
Whether they threw the magnets around or rested key players, the Demons had nothing to gain by winning. The system put them in a lose-lose position.
But what are the possible solutions to tanking? The NBA and NHL long ago adopted a lottery system, where teams who fail to qualify for the playoffs are given a percentage chance of “winning” the number one pick based on their final positions. The lower you finish in the standings, the higher your chance of picking first in the draft.
The problem with the draft lottery system is that it hasn’t stopped teams from tanking. Every year teams ship out their best players at the trade deadline in the hope of sinking to the bottom of the standings, if only for a chance at landing a high draft pick.
Likely no.1 pick Harley Reid playing for the AFL Academy. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
The most infamous modern example is the “trust the process” Philadelphia 76ers (so infamous they spawned a saying that has gone on to lose all meaning) whose fans endured years of losing so that their team had the privilege of drafting Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz with back-to-back number one picks.
Their strategy of losing to win was based on numbers. In order to increase their chances of winning a championship, they needed the best players and to get the best players, they needed to lose. North Melbourne have employed a similar strategy to the Sixers, but without much competition for mediocrity, they haven’t had to so obviously be bad on purpose.
In 2006, the current Philadelphia 76ers General Manager, Daryl Morey co-founded the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, which is held every year in Boston, Massachusetts. In 2012, researcher Adam Gold presented his solution to disincentive tanking and in the process, encourage winning.
His proposal was to give the first pick to the team that wins the most games after being mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. The team with the second most wins after elimination would receive the second pick and so on.
In theory, the worst team would be eliminated earliest and have the most chances to accumulate wins.
Using the 2023 AFL season as an example, West Coast were eliminated from finals contention after round 17 and North Melbourne after round 18. Both teams are bad and could use the top pick as the foundation for a rebuild.
The teams went head-to-head in round 20 in what could have been a Harley Reid Cup blockbuster, rather than a meaningless dead rubber that the Kangaroos are now glad they lost by five points. After their win against the Bulldogs, West Coast now have two wins, with the only other team to win a game since elimination being Hawthorn.
Under this method the bottom seven teams would enter the final round of this season with the carrot of a top three pick dangling in front of them, while West Coast would have secured pick one in dramatic fashion last week. North Melbourne supporters would be desperate for their team to win on Saturday, for the chance to earn pick two. Of course, the Kangaroos may have tried harder to win any of their final seven games if they had a reason to.
In the end, it’s a meaningless Saturday afternoon game that few will bother to watch. It’s a game that North Melbourne should want to lose for the long-term. If the AFL employed the Sloan solution, they may need to be “hell-bent” on winning, in order to win big come draft night.
PeteB
Roar Rookie
I like it. I guess it will never happen though. Finishing last should be an embarrassment. The Blues had never won a wooden spoon in 105 years until 2002 which was something of pride. Been an embarrassment ever since and I hate that last is automatically rewarded with the first pick.
Luke Deards
Roar Rookie
Hey mate. Thanks for the feedback. I think you might have missed the point of this article. I’m a North Melbourne member, I was at the ‘99 Grand Final. My point is that North Melbourne supporters (like me) shouldn’t be put in a position where losing gives you a better outcome than winning. I didn’t want the team to tank and I didn’t accuse them of tanking. Go roos
Pope Paul VII
Roar Rookie
Tanks for the memories.
Eagles 18
Roar Rookie
Well said. Luke should apologise and remove this rant, I mean article. Kane Cornes is a fl#g. 3 weeks ago, Cornes, Barret and Buckley accused West Coast of tanking. 2 weeks later they flip the coin and accused Simpson of doing the wrong thing by winning :laughing:. What a joke! Then Luke jumps on the bandwagon and the rest as they say is history.
Shane
Roar Rookie
The Sloan solution sounds good.
Mal Mak
Roar Rookie
What has GC done? Developed a good academy, that's what they've done. And they don't have 3 picks in the top 10 for any draftees, they just have the ability to bid for academy players not unlike the father-sons that the 16 older clubs can bid for.
Shane
Roar Rookie
So much for the bye before finals. This AFL round has to be the biggest joke round we have ever seen. Teams trying to lose, teams sending players to surgery, teams sending players on early end of season trips, players retiring before the last round. Only a moron would attend one of these games.
Goolooloo
Roar Rookie
Also Luke Davies Uniacke bruised his toe surfing, yeah righto. Star player has an accident at the beach blablablah. The AFL should be sending a doctor to his house and 5aking off his shoe to check if they’re lying.
Goolooloo
Roar Rookie
Mate check my comment under the video of footy classified talking about Luke Davies uniacke injury. I’ll write the whole thing up again on here in an hour or 2. Please write another article drawing attention to the interchange infringement in the last minute of the game in round 10 north vs Sydney. It’s affected the entire season as I think it’s the most blatant interference on a result from tanking ever. Absolutely disgraceful and nobody is talking about it. GWS , Geelong, Richmond, Essendon and Adelaide supporters should be hammering these boards with angry comments as their teams have every right to be playing in September over Sydney. There should be very serious investigation into that game
Vossy
Roar Rookie
So the odds are stacked in favour of the bottom teams, because they are knocked out earlier thus have more games to try and get the most wins. I don't mind this! I also think sorting draft order by percentage has merit. A couple of close wins late in the season doesn't change that West Coast have been the worst team all year (as evidenced by their percentage) and thus should have the first draft pick.
DTM
Roar Rookie
Yes, surely everyone would need to play everyone else once before you could adopt this. Even then you could argue that it wasn't a level playing field. For example: Brisbane playing Geelong in Geelong is not the same as playing them in Brisbane. The system might work well with a smaller league where everyone plays each other 3 times. You could implement the system after everyone has played each other twice. So, let's set up an 8 team super league with 21 rounds. Seriously, it would be better to have everyone play each other once (17 rounds). Then a new set of fixtures with the bottom 6 to be fixtured against each other for the last 5 rounds. The highest ranked of those 6 get the number 1 pick. I know it's been suggested by someone else before and it's not going to get support from the AFL (for lots of reasons).
Doctor Rotcod
Roar Rookie
The Eagles were out of finals contention by round 13, by my calculations. A long, long, long time ago. Clarkson, as always, makes it about him. "Poor North, won't anyone give us what we want?" The Eagles have ,to their detriment, just done enough in 2019/20 to not get any concessions at this point where a couple of high picks would be handy. Gold Coast have done what exactly lately to get 3 top 10 picks?
Tony Taylor
"Whether they threw the magnets around or rested key players, the Demons had nothing to gain by winning. The system put them in a lose-lose position." What annoyed me, a Melbourne supporter, about Melbourne's 2009 is that far from being easy-beats all year, there were quite a few games we would have won were it not for the magnet moving. What would have been better? Winning four games an getting an extra pick, or winning, say, 10 games and having a reasonable year in which Dean Bailey's game plan was starting to bear fruit. And then there's the flow-on point - every thing that happened post-tank contributed to Melbourne's 2021 premiership.
nics
Roar Rookie
A unique and creative idea which is why it won’t be adopted. Some might argue that the uneven fixture means teams might be “eliminated” from finals earlier depending on their draw. Mind you I like it.