Is this the right time to tank?

[Solar]

I know lots will hate this but there could be a real bonus for having a terrible year. Alot of recruiters are suggesting this up coming draft will have a beauty of a top 10. With the raping of the following 2-5 drafts this is the last chance to get some real talent into the ranks.

The catalyst for the hawks revival was their trading of senior players and bringing in some real good talent. We have a great CORE set of player between 22-27.

Trade a player like kosi for a first rounder and get 3-4 quality kids into our system. In addition to the development of the likes of howard, geary, big mac, allen etc. for the rest of the year things can turn around very quickly.

[JeffDunne]

Why in god's name would we intentionally throw games?

Actually it might help us win a few if the coach does the opposite to his natural instincts.

If we want to be in the first 5 picks of the draft then we should trade our way into that position - not fricken tank FFS.

[bergsone]

No tanking please Ross

[degruch]

FFS...why bother putting this stuff up here Solar, it isn't even funny.

[happy feet]

All tanking will do is cost us membership revenue next year.

[midas_touch]

I will rip up my membership the day we begin to tank. It's such a dog act.

[saint66au]

I would sincerely hope that the St KIlda FOotball Club would never entertain the idea of tanking

[Hard at it]

I know lots will hate this but there could be a real bonus for having a terrible year. Alot of recruiters are suggesting this up coming draft will have a beauty of a top 10. With the raping of the following 2-5 drafts this is the last chance to get some real talent into the ranks.

The catalyst for the hawks revival was their trading of senior players and bringing in some real good talent. We have a great CORE set of player between 22-27.

Trade a player like kosi for a first rounder and get 3-4 quality kids into our system. In addition to the development of the likes of howard, geary, big mac, allen etc. for the rest of the year things can turn around very quickly.

Kosi for a first rounder.................................. good to see we can still come on to Saintsational for a little bit of humour.

[aussierules0k]

[saintspremiers]

Tanking does exist, we all know that AOK....it's by design of team, not necessarily players not trying on game day.

Anyway, it is pointless for us to tank, given how many shyte teams that are below us on less wins right now, and these teams will stay below us.

So....we have little to achieve ladder position wise to tank.

We deseperately need every member we can get....Saints fans are very, very fickle and we will probably record a loss next season with only 28K members IMO.

We need to keep trying to win, somehow perhaps make the eight through default, and cash in on it while we can.

......and then trade Kosi at the end of the season (for his and our good!) for a SECOND round pick!

[bobmurray]

We dont need to tank to keep losing FFS....we can do it naturally....

[Otiman]

If by tank you mean deliberately throw games to win, then no way. We have integrity as an honest club, and without much success that's just about all we have to hang our hats on.

If by tank you mean "Explore list management options and develop a new gameplan from the ground up", then i'm all for that at this stage.

Limping into the finals, possibly beating Collingwood, and getting to another Semi, only to get smashed by the dogs would probably break my spirits.

[mick13]

Players don't, can't and will never go out and try to lose a match. I don't believe the players can do that. Coaches, managers and everyone else will try to make them lose by selecting kids and sending people in for surgery and coming up with a stupid gameplan, but you can't tell players to go out and lose cos I dont think they could...

[plugger66]

Players don't, can't and will never go out and try to lose a match. I don't believe the players can do that. Coaches, managers and everyone else will try to make them lose by selecting kids and sending people in for surgery and coming up with a stupid gameplan, but you can't tell players to go out and lose cos I dont think they could...

So we have been tanking since round one 2007.

[The Saintsational Man]

There will only ever be 1 tanker.

Carltank and thats it.

The Saints have to much pride to ever consider that kind of un-sportsman like behavior.

[choowy]

Ross does not need to tank, he has mastered losing as a profession.
________
Arizona Dispensary

[Zed]

if by "tanking" you mean play the kids and throw the team around to find out who can show something playing in a differnet position eg playing Goddard in the middle for 3 or 4 games straight .. then the answer is yes.

[Eastern]

I would sincerely hope that the St KIlda FOotball Club would never entertain the idea of tanking

Here, Here !!

[bergsone]

Hate the mention,what i hate even more is watching the tankers win today because of it,really is a faulty system

[Solar]

I will clarify, for those in outrage,

I did mean in the sense that we will use the rest of the season as a sounding board for the next 2-3 years. Yes try out players in certain places, bring in young players and give them their head for 4-6 weeks on end. Leave a young player on a dominating oppoisition player to speed up their development.....

No footballer or coach would go out to lose a match, too much is at stake. But as losses mount up and we slip down the ladder (a game off 12th) I can't help but wonder if it might just turn out to our advantage in the longer turn. Much rather this now then in 1-2 years

[Zippy]

Tanking is a total media beat up.

The only way a club could in anyway tank is by selecting kids.
This is not tanking if you are looking to the future.

Tanking implies players not trying or worse missing targets - on purpose.

Or it implies the coaching staff pulling Fevola off just when they're looking the goods, or leaving Travis Johnstone untagged.

I could make a crack about St Kilda players not trying even when no-one's asking them to tank, but that'd depress me too much . . .

A healthy ego would never look silly in front of their family, friends and fans on purpose. Try asking a singer to tank at his next gig.... ala sing out of tune. Not gonna happen.

The singers wouldn't deliberately stuff up, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. If a choir director was given first dibs at any decent tenors in the area if his performances sucked, I can easily see a less principled person unbalancing the sections or giving solos to people who can't handle them.

[Zippy]

I would sincerely hope that the St KIlda FOotball Club would never entertain the idea of tanking

Here, Here !!

We haven't. If we did, we wouldn't have finished with 5.5 instead of 5 wins in 2001, and we'd have picked both Wells and Goddard. If we'd done what, we'd probably have won a flag in 04 or 05.

Personally, I'm happy that we didn't, and we can prove that we didn't just by pointing to that one fact. Any success Carlton has in the next few years can be mocked quite easily - they tanked to get picks, just like they cheated the salary cap in the 90's. They never could understand the concept of a fair competition.

[Saint_in_SA]

Interesting that it is only now that Ross has been saying 'let's play the kids' when everyone has been saying it since the start of the season. Bit late now to start doing this, thanks for turning us in to the new age Richmond - damn 9th, I can taste it now....

[twirlyhair]

We are seriously a bottom 4 team...so we won't need to tank...we will get there without even trying!

[Backwards Fast]

We are seriously a bottom 4 team...so we won't need to tank...we will get there without even trying!

Not quite bottom 4 yet, but unless we find some good young kids and relatively quickly we will get there fairly soon