Some of the wash up from Round 12 apart from Buddy Franklin getting off with a reprimand has been about the West Coast Eagles tanking by dropping several players against Essendon and loosing the match. Tanking is a term dubbed by AFL followers of a side who will loose on purpose.
Tanking for draft picks
Some teams have lost on purpose so they can get better draft picks at the end of the years national draft and pre season draft. It is a system that the AFL has injected to try and help the lower performing sides to get back up the ladder and in premiership contention sooner.
It has helped with Hawthorn currently pushing for a premiership and Carlton in the top 8 after 3 wooden spoons in the past six years.
Under the AFL’s current rules, a club qualifies for a pick after round one, and before round two, if they finish with 16 premiership points or less. A club would qualify for a pick before round one should they record two such seasons on the trot. For example: Carlton lost their final 11 games last season and, as such, qualified for a pick before round one.
Tanking to be in a better shape for next year
Back in 2006 Kangaroos got their star players who had niggling injuries to get their end of the season operations before the end of the actual season. This enabled the players to be ready to start pre season training and get a full pre season under their belt. While the Kangaroos copped flak at the time for tanking, looking at their top 4 finish last year, you would say it was beneficial.
How do we fix this tanking issue?
The AFL tried to fix this problem by changing the time frame to get an extra round 1 pick from one year to two years, while this will hopefully fix teams from staying at the bottom.
While I think the bottom teams should get access to the best young and uncontracted talent in the pre season and national draft I do not think the 16th side should get pick 1 and the 15th side get pick 2 etc. This encourages teams to loose like Carlton last year to gain these top picks.
One suggestion which would work is that the teams that finish in the bottom four go in a raffle and the order they come out is the numbers they have in the draft. This would mean that maybe West Coast would have worried more about winning in round 12.
Do you have a better suggestion? Let us know.
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June 19th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
a) Did you just accuse the Hawks of Match fixing? I.E. Losing on purpose? That’s a huge accusation! I think with you using tanking to describe the two forms of tanking (List management Tanking (LMT) and Tanking for Draft Picks (TDP)), you have to say the Hawks Tanked in the LMT method but its impossible to show they did so in the TDP method. Also if they did, they did a bloody bad job of it as firstly they never came last in this time and secondly they won the last 4 games in 2006 that meant they lost draft picks.
b) TDP is impossible to prove! If you could prove it, you would have the side for Match Fixing (i.e. not trying to win).
c) a Lottery system in any form doesn’t stop LMT as you are still better off getting your players ready for the next year (whether by surgery or by playing kids or by retiring off old players)! Under your system you are still better off LMTing as you are likely to lose more and end up in the bottom 4 with a better chance of number 1 pick then if you didn’t.
D) if the WC tanked in Round 12, they did a LMT form and as noted in point C, a lottery wouldn’t have helped stop them doing it! They 1 extra game into 3 of there kids!
E) What is wrong with the league now? Its more exciting to watch then ever. Teams can get off the bottom. Good teams are able to rebuild and many with out hitting the bottom. Last year was one of the most even years ever. This year is fairly even except that the top 3 are starting to dominate! The Dogs and the Cats haven’t been near the bottom and the Hawks did a lot of work on there list that had little to do with being near the bottom. They did benefit from being near the bottom but the only number 1 pick that they have is Hodge and they traded for that!
Hope this helps. If anyone from the AFL reads this, don’t change anything, its perfect the way it is! If you have to change something, suspend Coaches, players or officials that mention tanking and ban media people that ask coaches, players or officials about tanking.
Molly
Phillip Molly Malones last blog post..Bet you it was my Uncle! Hawks betting enquiry
June 19th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
@Molly - Good comment. The article was written just to get into the whole tanking topic a bit more and as I (and then you) described you have two types of tanking.
What Hawthorn did was slightly different from Carlton as Carlton rebuilt by number one picks (St Kilda tried that and failed) were Hawks did get early draft picks (Buddy, Roughead etc) but they also did what Kangaroos did and play the young kids and also got rid of the older players (Thompson, Rawlings, Graham etc). Which is what WC did by resting Kerr etc and play the kids.
I guess the lottery system is more to help encourage teams not to try and loose games for the early positions (16, 15 etc) as you will still have a chance to get the number 1 by finishing 13th. ie: getting Daniel Rich at pick 2 would be better than pick 3 or 4.
Bulldogs did rebuild by early draft picks with Ray, Cooney, Griffen etc and so did Geelong with low finishes in the early 2000’s.
I however do agree that this system works as it helps the competition to be more even than the 70s and 80s were only 4 or 5 teams had a chance to win the GF.
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June 20th, 2008 at 7:24 am
I think it definitely has to be looked at by the AFL.
The AFL’s ‘bury its head in the sand’ policy and see if it sorts itself out, isn’t going to work in this instance.
Its pretty ugly and down right boring watching teams play less competitively. And its an insult to the fans of both teams involved. There were a couple of games last year that were very forgettable.
The idea of a lottery draft system much like the NBA’s could work and is a valid solution.It will be interesting to see if there are any solutions to this issue.
June 27th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
So what is good about your plan? Clubs will still have the incentive to tank, it is just that it is the clubs ranked about 11-14 on the ladder, who will want to tank so as to get into the bottom 4 and the draft lottery.
Try thinking through the implications of these ‘quick and easy’ supposed solutions before publishing them
June 28th, 2008 at 8:49 am
@Rob - Yes clubs will still tank but we cannot change that with the draft pick system that the AFL has. Like I have said, I do not disagree with the draft pick system as it allows teams to rebuild quickly and it means we do not have an England Soccer system were the rich clubs always win (like the 70s and 80s).
However at the moment it is better off to finish 15th or 16th than 11th and so why not drop a game when you get a better player. However if the bottom 5 or so get a chance to get draft pick 1, it will mean that clubs wont be loosing to get pick 1 or 2.
If you think my suggestion is still flawed, please provide some further suggestions as I welcome your input and comments and thanks for dropping by.
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