The penny drops....

[borderbarry]

I agree with Eastern to a point, however I dont think Melbourne should be allowed to keep their first round Pick this year, as it was gained as a result of the tanking, in a round-about way.

[Dave McNamara]

I remember reading articles about Robert Harvey and Nathan Burke who both said they received games early in the careers that they probably didnt deserve. Why because the coaches at the time thought they would be better off with the experience in the long term.

Which goes to show that this has been happening forever in some form well before priority picks and tanking were ever discussed. Its what we still call "development" in the lower grades. When your team is clearly not good enough to make the finals - what else do you have left in a season except for development ?

Agree that priority picks murky the waters a little, and I would not be against introducing a lottery system that removes the 'guaranteed' incentives associated with finishing bottom.

I still don't reckon we tanked. If so, people need to explain BBBB's last ever kick in our colours... the kick that cost us a Priority Pick.

Agreed Zed... there's giving blokes games for the future, and there's trying blokes out in different positions, and then there's...

"He explained that these are the kids we want (Tom Scully and Jack Trengove) and this is how we will get them. These two kids will be the key to our future."

As the losses mounted, the player said a member of the leadership group confronted Bailey to express his dismay.

"(Bailey) said: "Mate, I know it's bulls---, but I can't do anything'.

"He would have won an extra five or six games and had at least another year of coaching if he wasn't forced to do it."

Asked about the mood of players in the second half of 2009, the player said: "You play footy to win, you don't come out to allow someone else to take the victory . . . so how do you come to training and games every week when you know your coach and the club wants you to lose?"http://www.heraldsun.com.au/afl/dean-ba ... 6508732765

And then there's...

Chief executive Cameron Schwab and football manager Chris Connolly are both believed to have expressed their concern to coach Dean Bailey after the Demons' 11-point victory over Port Adelaide in round 15.

It is then believed, according to The Age, that Connolly told Bailey: ''Jimmy's just fallen out of his hospital bed", an inference that cancer stricken club president Jim Stynes would not have wanted this result.

In the following week Connolly is also said to have told coaches they would lose their jobs if the club won five games.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-02/d ... rt/4348866

I have no doubt this is very close to the money. If proven, the AFL should throw the book at those pathetic tanking Dreamons. Starting with lifetime bans for the guilty officials. (More bloody Pharisees in action!) Don't worry, the Dreamon's supporter won't even notice... bumper ski season predicted.

Then, the AFL should pick that book up again, and throw it at themselves for turning a blind eye to what everyone knew was happening. (Our Rd 22 game against them in 2009 anyone...?)

But ya gotta laugh, all that deceit now looks like coming back to bite them big time. And for what... so their Keystone Cop recruiters could continually 'get the wrong man'...

Talk about being run down by the karma bus with Mr Irony at it's wheel.

[Eastern]

I remember reading articles about Robert Harvey and Nathan Burke who both said they received games early in the careers that they probably didnt deserve. Why because the coaches at the time thought they would be better off with the experience in the long term.

Which goes to show that this has been happening forever in some form well before priority picks and tanking were ever discussed. Its what we still call "development" in the lower grades. When your team is clearly not good enough to make the finals - what else do you have left in a season except for development ?

Zed, we're talking about the late 80's . We would NEVER be convicted of tanking back then. Our Defence: We were chyt !!

[Zed]

Exactly Eastern. We were rubbish. And if we ever got that bad again, i would rather they invest time into the kids to find out who can play and be the core of a premiership tilt in the future rather than have some recycled has beens running around trying to scratch out an extra win or 2.

[bergholt]

Exactly Eastern. We were rubbish. And if we ever got that bad again, i would rather they invest time into the kids to find out who can play and be the core of a premiership tilt in the future rather than have some recycled has beens running around trying to scratch out an extra win or 2.

...which is exactly what Melbourne did.

I don't understand all the angst about this. Even if Melbourne did play for the future rather than the present, everyone knew exactly what the incentives were and what they should have been doing, just the same as for St Kilda in the 80s. If you bet on Melbourne to win then you're the idiot. I don't understand why the AFL is supposed to "do something" about this more than removing the priority pick, which has already been done?

[The Redeemer]

Shouldn't Cuddles just be put out to pasture and shot due to his obvious inability to create anything remotely successful?

[Dave McNamara]

Exactly Eastern. We were rubbish. And if we ever got that bad again, i would rather they invest time into the kids to find out who can play and be the core of a premiership tilt in the future rather than have some recycled has beens running around trying to scratch out an extra win or 2.

...which is exactly what Melbourne did.

I don't understand all the angst about this. Even if Melbourne did play for the future rather than the present, everyone knew exactly what the incentives were and what they should have been doing, just the same as for St Kilda in the 80s. If you bet on Melbourne to win then you're the idiot. I don't understand why the AFL is supposed to "do something" about this more than removing the priority pick, which has already been done?

Hi Bergs', I'm normally with you, but disagree on this one.

Your sentence which I've highlighted above is the key I think. Everything would be pretty much ok... if that was all that the Dreamons did.

Threatening coaching staff (and also indirectly players who questioned) with the sack if they won matches!!!
(I've posted several links a bit earlier in this thread.)
That goes against the whole point of any competition.
The previous Dreamon President Paul Gardiner is on record as saying he walked out of games because he could see what was going on... he now prefers to watch Sandy play.
http://www.3aw.com.au/blogs/neil-mitche ... 28ima.html

There are a wide variety of behaviours which could be considered to be tanking. These include:

Instructing the players to deliberately lose matches
Employing unusual tactics in matches, including using players in positions where they do not usually play[2]
Resting star players with minor injuries, who would likely not be rested if the team were contesting finals[3]
Playing younger players who do not yet have much experience at AFL level[4]
While all of these behaviours can be interpreted as an attempt to avoid winning matches, all but the first point can also be justified as a sensible player management and development strategy for a team with no chance of playing finals. This complicates the debate about tanking.


Round 18, 2009 – Melbourne vs Richmond
Melbourne entered the match with a record of 3–14. Because it had received a priority draft pick in 2008, it had the potential to receive a priority draft pick at the start of the draft if won no more than one of its final five matches.

The match was close for much of the game, but Melbourne kicked away to lead by a few goals in the final quarter. Richmond was then able to make a come-back, and an after-the-siren goal by Jordan McMahon gave Richmond a four-point win. The Herald Sun later accused coach Melbourne coach Dean Bailey of making positional changes in the final quarter which were so nonsensical that they could only have been designed to ensure Richmond would make a comeback: this included moving key defenders James Frawley and Matthew Warnock into the forward-line, resting key midfielders, and using Brad Miller as a ruckman.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priority_draft_pick

... and legal implications could be on the way...

THERE is a ''fine line'' between a coach experimenting and throwing a match, according to Victoria's Gaming Minister, Michael O'Brien.

Victoria will have a new criminal offence for match fixing punishable by a jail term by the end 2014, Mr O'Brien has announced.

But he stopped short of labelling tanking - a team deliberately losing for better draft picks - as match fixing.

''It depends on how you define tanking,'' he said yesterday.

''It's a fine line between a coach who decides to experiment with positional changes and deliberately trying to lose a match.

''I would have thought the former is okay; in my view the latter is not okay.''

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/t ... z2BMA9LJ3h

It would be laughable if it were part of a Monty Python script... but it's real.

If it's 'good enough' for the league's other up-themselves self-proclaimed would-be born-to-rule 'blue bloods', then it's 'good enough' for the Dreamons... throw the book at them..., and throw the same book at the AFL junta that turned a blind eye to what everyone knew was happening.

I also hear that Mr Vindictive is actually calling for mercy for the Dreamons(!?!)
Hmmmmm..., has he had his 'Road to Damacus' experience..., or does he have some Filthy laundry of his own that he doesn't want aired...?

I knew I was right, when I called for us to rescue poor Chip Frawley from that blight-on-the-game rabble.