The last two weeks of the AFL’s home and away season are usually only consequential for teams battling for finals position. But rather uniquely, this season they were also important for teams at the other end of the ladder.
Both West Coast in Round 23 and North Melbourne in Round 24 confounded expectations by winning when the punditry suggested they needed to keep losing to improve their draft hand. All confirming one key lesson: we need to stop talking about tanking.
For many years, this has been a key topic of discussion on talkback radio and TV analysis shows. The chatter and the dissatisfaction with teams not going all out to win every single game eventually had an effect on the AFL schedule and rules around the AFL Draft.
For a long time, winning five games or fewer in a season entitled you to an additional draft pick before the first round. On the surface an active incentive to not win games. To many this was unacceptable, and the exhibition of Carlton and Melbourne playing each other but neither going that hard in the last game of the 2007 home and away was unedifying.
On the other hand, during the decade from 2000-2009, every team played in a preliminary final at least once. Teams climbed up the ladder quickly.
At the end of the decade, the automatic priority pick was abolished. Since 2010, Carlton, Essendon and St Kilda have not made a preliminary final. In addition to two more teams, climbing up the ladder became obviously more difficult.
However, football people are still committed to winning, ably demonstrated by West Coast and North Melbourne recently. Perhaps it’s no accident both are coached by men who have a premiership under their belts. They realise how important a winning culture is. On the other hand, the difference between a pick 1 and a pick 2 remains marginal at best.
Before the pre-finals bye was introduced, under the current final eight system, no team finishing 5th-8th made a Grand Final. Since then, it’s happened two out of five years (there was no bye in 2020, and in 2021 the bye was before the Grand Final).
Elijah Hewett. (Photo by Daniel Carson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Again, the solution outweighed the problem, which really wasn’t a problem at all.
For a long time, AFL pundits have displayed a level of immaturity that does not befit the status of the league. The fixture is unfair (so is the NFL’s in the US, but no one complains about it over there), and tanking is a problem that cannot be tolerated.
Those who still think tanking must be stopped at any price look to the US as well as to the NBA where they have a draft lottery. Teams still tank egregiously despite only getting an increased chance of a better pick – and the NBA remains as popular as ever.
In brief, the AFL has more important pressing issues to deal with than worrying about a tanking issue which is rare in regularity and not terribly important either. Elite sportspeople still want to win. In the end, tanking is still in the aid of winning.
It’s not the end of the world when it does happen. So let’s stop talking about it so damn much.
dargerovitch
Roar Rookie
Living in NSW i don't hear all the AFL gossip , but the only ones i heard going on about tanking were Damien Barrett and Caroline Wilson, neither of which "experts" i have much time for. I also don't know why there is such a fuss about draft picks. Plenty of players taken early have not delivered , while other blokes taken as pick 50-something have turned out highly-valued players. Even an early pick doesn't guarantee success if the rest of the squad not much help.
AJ73
Roar Rookie
Yeah, never understood why teams not in finals contention are considered to be tanking if they decide to do. 1. Send players off to surgery early so they can possible have an uncompromised pre-season in preparation for the following year. 2. Try out players on their list to see what they actual have when it is in a game. They have to make list changes each year, either through delisting players or trading them. No-one complains when players are rested during the season.
Darkbluepaul
Roar Rookie
Grest article finally somebody who knows how priority system helped the competition!! Getting rid of the priority pick has seen teams dwell at the bottom for decade. Teams have always experiment at the end of the year. This is a fact in evey sport but in AFL it is tanking. As a result teams have a decade of no success! I am Blues supporter I feel for the Roos and even the Eaglea it is terribly hard to get back when you get 1 A grade kid into your club of 45 players!!!
WestraliaForever
Roar Rookie
This tanking issue has motivated me to register and make a comment! It’s damn offensive to Clarkson and Simpson that they would ever lead teams that tanked. I was a bit shocked that serious football people even suggested a four time premiership coach or that coach’s protege that was also a one time premiership coach, two time premiership player and club captain would even consider tanking. Clarkson and Simpson know just sinks talented teams by sucking out the mental intensity and winning culture (see Melbourne). North Melb is a financially weak but proud and culturally strong club which until a couple of years ago bobbed around preliminary finalist mark. The Eagles make their mistakes but there is a reason why it’s up there with Geelong, Collingwood, Hawthorn and Sydney as one of the best run, most consistent and most successful clubs of the last 30 years. Eagles and North Melb are down (with fellow strong clubs of the 10s, Hawthorn, Freo and Richmond), but they will bob up again soon enough. It’s just an impact of equalisation and the need for overall programme renewal e.g. new game plan plus better list and medical management in Eagles’ case. As an aside, Eagles list management over last five years deserves an entirely separate story. Between rapid turnover of list managers, not many high picks and Covid, it’s kind of unsurprising that Eagles are down bottom.
nics
Roar Rookie
To be fair his team tried to tank v the Eagles and succeeded against GWS and Collingwood.
PriddisJunior
Roar Rookie
Yeah, tanking is on the other end of the scale to whacky compensation pick rules and the rando priority pick formula... let's talk about them instead.
sunnycoasttiger
Roar Rookie
Every club has a list of players. We're often told it takes a full squad to win a flag. Seems to me that clubs should be allowed to select any combination of players listed in that squad. End of story.
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
Charlie is the only one I can recall
Don Freo
Roar Rookie
Hardly anyone really talks about tanking.
Shane
Roar Rookie
The best option for all these integrity issues is to schedule an "Unknown" round as the final round. This could be incorporated into the Gather Round so the host city is known at the beginning of the year so flights and accommodation can be booked. The match ups would then be decided after the penultimate round by a transparent formula based on percentage/wins/home ground advantages to create a weighted metric of all team's matches. This unknown round would then even up the unevenness of the draw and remove disincentivised match ups as much as possible.