Opinion Tanking. The elephant that isn't going away

[BF Tiger]

North have a habit of beating Richmond.

 

[Rob R]

Tanking these days isnt like it was 10 years ago. Teams would tank to get a priority pick, these days it's to get only 1 pick higher.

A bit meh really.

North's tanking isn't just about pick 1, it is about justifying a PP and their farcical request for Sanders.

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[Roby]

In US drafts the number one picks are battle hardened superstars. Too many misses at number 1 pick in afl. It is already a lottery

So doesn't it matter even less if we do a lottery in the AFL?

 

[peetoo]

So doesn't it matter even less if we do a lottery in the AFL?

That’s the worst reason I heard. Won’t stop tanking by the way

 

[Roby]

That’s the worst reason I heard. Won’t stop tanking by the way

You just said .. It's a lottery. It's your reason. Weird rebuttal.

 

[HarryBeef]

The only thing I can remember from that game was Brock McLean not getting the memo.

He was dominating so we moved him to full forward and barely scored again.

He wasn't playing for us then?

 

[Freomaniac]

Problem is it creates a vicious cycle without addressing any of the problems at north.

Same with the Gold Coast getting all their handouts. They’ve since traded pick 11 for 27 and given up pick 7 for cap space. But because they’ve got handouts north want some.

If north get something now the next club down the bottom has direct incentive to wave a white flag and wait for their hand out.

If the AFL keeps incentivising it, teams will do it. It’s up to the AFL to stamp it out.

Well that is true...

But that is Part of the problem....

If there is a reason to finish low on the ladder, the system will be not only used, but sometimes abused too.

Dockers have no 1st round pick and look certain to finish bottom 4 or bottom 6. Yet they are in a better situation than North Melbourne and West coast, for the short term anyway.

Saying that, Freos rebuild from 2016-21 was flawed, but I can understand why they did certain trades and recruited certain kids in certain years.

Dockers traded that pick 3 to GWS for a package of Cam McCarthy, pick 8, pick 32 and pick 72. I dont blame the dockers in doing that. We went 0-10 and got 4 wins in that 2016 season after being top 4 the previous season.

If North and eagles want to keep their top 5 pick and try and get one of the better kids in the draft, then thats fine.

The point is, If the clubs ask for a hand out that is fine. AFL will either say yes or No. If the AFL say yes, then the AFL will hand something if it makes a team competitive. If not, then Struggling teams find a different path.

If Teams are so bad to the point the AFL have to step in and appoint certain people, then thats fine too. The AFL stepped in to help the demons at the end of 2013. They started off by helping the demons having Paul Roos as coach for 2014-6. It was a slow path but the demons got a premiership in 2021.

 

[sdfc]

The AFL love a compromised competition.

 

[Freomaniac]

That's a pretty good strike rate, if you think about it.

That's one in thirteen. But Hodge won FOUR premierhips so that means, 6/39, so that's a premiersip once every 6 or 7 years.

Also, 14 Grand Finals from no.1 picks which makes having a no.1 draft pick in a grand final is more then than every 3 years.

people also forget the amount of number 1 picks that didnt win a premiership but at least made a grand final.

 

[100action]

Why do people waste energy talking about tanking/salary cap cheating/doping?

Based on the AFL's history in dealing with these matters, particularly in the era of commercialization and massive TV deals, do you honestly believe any real breaches will be seriously investigated?

Based on the way AFL exec performances bonuses are structured (i.e. revenue from TV deals, advertising revenue, membership #s) and the value in the 'AFL' brand, do you honestly believe there is any real incentive to get to the bottom of potential breaches, levy real sanctions and introduce a bad news cycle rather than sweep it all under the rug?

The only time the AFL will step in and introduce real sanctions are when things are at the point of no return, and the public has been exposed to all the failed strategies to sweep the issue under the rug. When doing the right thing is actually the only sole profit maximizing option remaining because all the finer details are out in the open, warts and all. Given the relative ease avoiding this and by extension the rarity of any real penalties, do you honestly think this will happen enough to deter tanking/salary cap cheating/doping?

IMO these topics for me have been pointless for some time.

 

[hcd199]

Fans are obsessed with the idea of tanking. Every top draft prospect is the best ever, incomparable, a new name around which another tabloid soap opera sideshow can revolve for those supporters who find they're bored of actually watching games of football - and how could winning a game of football possibly compare to the coveted goal of moving a rung up the order in which clubs select from a pool of untested youngsters in what remains a highly inexact science? It's an excellent excuse for why your own club is losing so badly so often - it simply must be a deliberate ploy, the advantage of having first choice instead of second each round will make all the difference in our rebuild, what a masterful gambit! - and therefore also an easy label with which to dismiss genuine terrible performance as underhanded gaming of the system.

The inverse ladder draft order is a pretty reasonable method of providing competitive balance to a competition without too much artificiality - but that's what it is, balance, not some great advantage, otherwise you might have expected a last-placed club from any point in the 21st century so far to have won a flag quicker than 8 years after a spoon (and that flag without the club's top pick from the corresponding draft), to have made a losing GF quicker than 6 years later, to make finals within 2 years more often than the three times it's happened (Fremantle 2001/2003, West Coast 2010/2011, Brisbane 2017/2019).

Basically, no club acting in their own best interests would be deliberately throwing games of football. It was a flawed enough notion back when there were defined benefits (in the form of additional picks) for falling below declared thresholds - it's utterly ludicrous in the context of the difference between Picks 1 and 2, or as some contrived display of long-term terribleness to convince an AFL that we all know acts for its own vested interests to look favourably upon a team... and if you're fool enough to tank for such meagre scraps as those, then you absolutely would for an extra weighting in any draft lottery too. It's a non-issue - a hot topic only for a footy media cohort desperate for content to fill each day.

 

[jackster83]

My club should have tanked in 2021 instead of pushing for pointless late wins against North and Hawthorn.

Finn Callaghan would have fixed a gaping hole in our midfield.

 

[bzparkes]

Some questionable stuff in the last few minutes of North vs Essendon just now.

Wonder if they'll be put under the microscope of the Vic media next week, or does that only happen to interstate sides?

 

[Ry009]

Some questionable stuff in the last few minutes of North vs Essendon just now.

Wonder if they'll be put under the microscope of the Vic media next week, or does that only happen to interstate sides?

Yep, we're a very good skilled side. How good are we at hiding it?

 

[bzparkes]

Yep, we're a very good skilled side. How good are we at hiding it?

Why is the forward setup so abysmal and why does they suddenly start making such dumb/critical mistakes whenever the game's close?

 

[Ry009]

Why is the forward setup so abysmal and why does they suddenly start making such dumb/critical mistakes whenever the game's close?

Poor fitness and poor leadership via poor development. We need to give Gavin Brown the arse. I'm all for us getting soft cap relief but I'm pretty sure the AFL knocked it back last year.

I've said it before, I'd prefer we didn't get the picks so we don't have an asterisk like 90% of the decent teams of the last 20 years. (And oddly enough the same clubs having a whinge about any mooted support that hasn't even been announced)

 

[bzparkes]

Poor fitness and poor leadership via poor development. We need to give Gavin Brown the arse. I'm all for us getting soft cap relief but I'm pretty sure the AFL knocked it back last year.

That's fair but some of the comments in the media around Clarkson taking a paycut to afford other coaches also have merit.

Either way, an improvement in the off-field stuff is the most important thing for North but if that forward 'structure' isn't by design, then they need to look at a new forwards coach.

I've said it before, I'd prefer we didn't get the picks so we don't have an asterisk like 90% of the decent teams of the last 20 years. (And oddly enough the same clubs having a whinge about any mooted support that hasn't even been announced)

The picks are fine and my dig isn't necessarily at North but the media who love to accuse WCE of 'tanking' off one game, yet will conveniently ignore North's close losses this year.

For the record, I don't think for a second the players tank, they always want to win. Coaches can pull a few 'levers' however, and if one team gets a look at by the media, surely the other one should as well?

Otherwise, the plebs on the footy shows should just acknowledge the fact that North/WCE just happen to be terrible and don't know what to do when a game is winnable.

 

[Ry009]

Otherwise, the plebs on the footy shows should just acknowledge the fact that North/WCE just happen to be terrible and don't know what to do when a game is winnable.

Mate, I gave up on the footy shows a while ago. It isn't worth it. We've become like the poms with our sports media. Bunch of sycophants saying whatever to generate the most clicks.

 

[Roby]

Why is the forward setup so abysmal and why does they suddenly start making such dumb/critical mistakes whenever the game's close?

North will be tanking for more assistance next year.

 

[Liam Boy]

There's just no way North are tanking. The losing does more damage to the club than any draft picks could make up for, even if we do get PP3 and Sanders.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

Some questionable stuff in the last few minutes of North vs Essendon just now.

Wonder if they'll be put under the microscope of the Vic media next week, or does that only happen to interstate sides?

Purple barret won't question it. If it was the hawks he would

 

[hilly]

I'd prefer it if we were tanking as opposed to being shit.

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[MC Extra Dollop]

The NBA, I believe, is used as a prime example of how good a lottery system can be, yet every season there are clubs who opt out of doing everything they can to make the finals so that they can enter the draft lotto instead.

I actually think that people don't care whether the NBA lottery works, they just think it sounds like a fun idea. And that's not a good enough reason in my opinion for a team that could easily finish on 10 wins to leapfrog one of the truly terrible teams of my lifetime.

The only two teams that are still in contention for the #1 pick under the current system have been about as bad as anyone you care to name over a two year period in the AFL era. They both need multiple ready-made AFL calibre players to even start to right the ship.

Beyond that, I'd say that the incentive is that someone other than Harley Reid is likely to be the best player of the 2023 draft. When people compare him to Dustin Martin, surely they can recall that Martin wasn't the 'once in a generation talent' that teams would potentially be tempted to tank for? That was Tom Scully, who ended up being a good, solid AFL player, made a couple of AA 40 squads, but never the final team, no B&Fs, some bad luck with injury (others have had worse), didn't make it to 200 games. Or Jack Trengove, whose career was derailed by injury and he didn't even get to 100 games.

I'm not as across this as others for sure, but there's been a few other #1 picks in my time who've generated a bit of 'extra' buzz around them than just a regular #1 and more often than not, they don't live up to the hype even though they put together relatively long careers as solid players. Josh Fraser, Bryce Gibbs, Matthew Kreuzer, Scully, David Swallow, Tom Boyd are some of the names that come to mind... there's certainly still plenty of time for Matt Rowell, but even in his case, after the way he dominated his draft year and made as amazing a start to his AFL career as anyone in recent memory, you'd probably have expected him.to pick up a B&F/AA by now.

 

[Supercoach Bargain]

Sides that have tanked openly have created more problems with losing culture becoming the norm than the benefits of one highly rated teenager coming into the club.

 

[BigVic]

Eagles kicked their lowest score in a derby and their first ever 100 point loss to their cross-town rivals a week after blowing a win vs Essendon 7 days earlier. Evidence of tanking