Tanking - how to stop it?

[wisedog 328]

I agree priority picks have to go... and if I had to choose between missing out on Scully and being smeared as 'tankers' for the next 10 years, with hindsight, I may well have chosen the former.

I don't think anything more needs to be done, simply remove priority picks. There will always be games where sides will be theoretically better off losing, but no side will ever again engineer the best part of a season to ensure they finish under 5 wins.

The question is, how do you support the clubs like Port Adelaide? What hope do they have?

[biggestred 4,342]

The priority should be over 3 years not two. Make it 13.5 wins over 3 years. No team is going to want to be that crap for that long.

[old55 21,402]

hahahah ... you clearly miss the point. Top kids get rewarded, no tanking, no go home factor prior to you using your picks.

Remember a few posts back - zero, zilch, no top 10 picks have ever gone home after 2-4 years.

The draft is about evening the competition. Sampi to Port, Coniglio to WC and Patton to Collingwood - brilliant!

Striker's idea - imaginative. Your idea - moronic.

You took too much acid.

Edited August 8, 2011 by old55

[Guest hangon007]

I agree priority picks have to go... and if I had to choose between missing out on Scully and being smeared as 'tankers' for the next 10 years, with hindsight, I may well have chosen the former.

I don't think anything more needs to be done, simply remove priority picks. There will always be games where sides will be theoretically better off losing, but no side will ever again engineer the best part of a season to ensure they finish under 5 wins.

The question is, how do you support the clubs like Port Adelaide? What hope do they have?

Well under my system they would get the rights to the best SA kids every year ... no go home factor, no need for tanking, but if the kids dont want to go there they DONT have to nominate Port.

They would never have to worry about the go home factor if a Victorian or WA kid did nominate them ... they would know for EVER more the kid they were choosing with their first pick was passionate to play AFL for them. But that would be the same for ALL clubs.

[Guest hangon007]

It's a natural cycle teams are up teams are down look at where Brisbane is now after they

dominated for half a decade.

They call it tanking, it's a sexy media word for player management.

There is 3 phases a side can be in

In the hunt - premiership contenders (should be able to win at least one final guaranteed) Coll, Geel, Hawth, Carl, WCE

Bottoming out - List clean out required (need to rebuild overhaul the list) Bris, Port, Adel, WestBull

There abouts - Mixture of holding contending and rebuilding. This is where the majority of lists sit.

If your bottoming out you have to know what you've got playing players out of position to find out if their adaptable is essential.

I'm not concerned with tanking its obvious where list are if your stupid enough to waste money gambling more full you.

I'm for an as even competition as quickly as possible for everyone.

Look at players lost to these new franchises it has only been under performing sides that have lost players further diluting their talent

If you want a competition rather than a farce the priority pick must stay.

Remember you have to be crap for 2 years to receive any significant advantage.

Drafting & trading is not a "natural cycle" ... give good picks to bad club ... they will remain bad.

Give bad picks to good clubs they will develop them into good kids.

[Guest hangon007]

The priority should be over 3 years not two. Make it 13.5 wins over 3 years. No team is going to want to be that crap for that long.

Well no but it might just kill them if they are genuinely just ... no good.

[mmc 18]

Screw the priority- put the onus on clubs to make every pick a winner (easy for us to say).

Why don't they raffle picks 1-3 between the bottom 3 sides on the ladder, and keep it as per usual for the rest of the sides?

This way, the three truly battling clubs (which is generally the number of extremely bad sides we see each year) have no incentive to finish bottom. On the other hand, it nevertheless still guarantees that they will get a good player (picks 1-3 have historically been quite fruitful for clubs down the bottom).

[Cheesecake 92]

It seems that there is no real answer to the question, and that tanking will always be around in some form.

For me, the lottery system seems the best and reduces the certainty of the result.

I like the weighted version where if you use 8 teams for example

16th gets 8 balls to be picked from the barrel

15th gets 7 balls etc until 9th gets 1 ball

The AFL could still even add extra balls to a team as a priority pick.

There is still a chance that 9th could get pick 1, and 16th get pick 8, but it is unlikely.

This system gives more benefits to lower placed teams, whilst still not making the ladder position and pick so certain, therefore reducing the definitive result in tanking.

Nailed it, Great One!

A weighted lottery is the best idea put forward to resolve this issue. And by some margin. I'm baffled as to why the AFL hasn't moved to this system already, given all the bad press about tanking over the last few years.

It seems to me that the issue of tanking only really rears its head whenever there is an extra-ordinary amount of benefit to be gained from losing a single game. This only arises when a team is vying for a priority pick, or against another team for a very high pick (eg 1 or 2). And it only arises within the current system because the difference between a win and a loss in a single game can be a guarantee of a particular highly-valued pick.

In principle I don't think there is anything wrong with priority being given to lower performing teams. People love to blame priority picks for tanking, but the problem really is 1> the guarantee of a particular highly-valued pick and 2> the massive difference in reward for losing a single game vs winning it (such as finishing on 4 wins rather than 5, or finishing last rather than 2nd last).

You do not need to chuck the baby out with the bath water. We can keep an advantage for worse performing teams, and the principle of a priority pick, but remove the enormous advantage associated with the result of a single game. And the system The Great One has outlined here does exactly that!

My preferred option would be, as follows.

- Weighted lottery for the bottom eights sides (the top sides are hardly tanking, are they?)

- Determine the formula for the number of balls each team gets using both ladder position and games won (so, the lower you finish the greater you chance of getting a high pick, and if you are in the realm of priority picks, eg 1 to 4 wins, you chances increase exponentially with each successive loss, rather than a single cutoff point where you are suddenly greatly advantaged)

- If you fall in the realm of priority picks two or more years running then, instead of all your balls being removed from the lottery once your pick has come up, you get to leave a significantly reduced number (again based on losses) in the lottery for another pick. If your other pick comes out in the top eight you keep it, and the remaining team(s) get allocated picks 9, 10 etc.

So, end result:

- No single game determines the exact outcome of a draft pick, or provides a huge advantage if lost.

- Worse teams have a statistically better chance of getting a better pick, becoming almost a mathematical certainty of the top pick as you get closer to 0 wins.

- Really badly performing sides over two or more years are likely to get a top pick (maybe 1 or 2) and another pick around the middle of the first round (maybe 7 or 8)

[dee-luded 2,958]

... you could insert a pre-first round selection where every club get a selection ... almost like the GWS mini draft this year, where players get to nominate your club/s. Kids would have to agree to the nomination for that first round.

You could only select kids in the first round that nominated you as a preferred club/s.

Call it an almost reward for the kids that performed brilliant in TAC cup football.

What that effectively would do is force AFL clubs to invest even more in the youth of tomorrow. If you where going to tank it would not ensure you the kids you want ... in fact the kids are less likely to want you.

You would kill tanking ... you would return the integrity to the game ... you reward top performing kids ... you reward AFL clubs that invested in the kids.

I had a similar thought that I started to write this morning but stopped it to reflect on it more.

That was that all clubs get to pick one player from their Home state, prior to the draft, decided amongst home clubs by ladder position that season. This way more Top players get to stay in their Home state.

Better for the players and Families, at least 18 of them. Excepting Tassie and NT of course.

[dee-luded 2,958]

Nailed it, Great One!

A weighted lottery is the best idea put forward to resolve this issue. And by some margin. I'm baffled as to why the AFL hasn't moved to this system already, given all the bad press about tanking over the last few years.

It seems to me that the issue of tanking only really rears its head whenever there is an extra-ordinary amount of benefit to be gained from losing a single game. This only arises when a team is vying for a priority pick, or against another team for a very high pick (eg 1 or 2). And it only arises within the current system because the difference between a win and a loss in a single game can be a guarantee of a particular highly-valued pick.

In principle I don't think there is anything wrong with priority being given to lower performing teams. People love to blame priority picks for tanking, but the problem really is 1> the guarantee of a particular highly-valued pick and 2> the massive difference in reward for losing a single game vs winning it (such as finishing on 4 wins rather than 5, or finishing last rather than 2nd last).

You do not need to chuck the baby out with the bath water. We can keep an advantage for worse performing teams, and the principle of a priority pick, but remove the enormous advantage associated with the result of a single game. And the system The Great One has outlined here does exactly that!

My preferred option would be, as follows.

- Weighted lottery for the bottom eights sides (the top sides are hardly tanking, are they?)

- Determine the formula for the number of balls each team gets using both ladder position and games won (so, the lower you finish the greater you chance of getting a high pick, and if you are in the realm of priority picks, eg 1 to 4 wins, you chances increase exponentially with each successive loss, rather than a single cutoff point where you are suddenly greatly advantaged)

- If you fall in the realm of priority picks two or more years running then, instead of all your balls being removed from the lottery once your pick has come up, you get to leave a significantly reduced number (again based on losses) in the lottery for another pick. If your other pick comes out in the top eight you keep it, and the remaining team(s) get allocated picks 9, 10 etc.

So, end result:

- No single game determines the exact outcome of a draft pick, or provides a huge advantage if lost.

- Worse teams have a statistically better chance of getting a better pick, becoming almost a mathematical certainty of the top pick as you get closer to 0 wins.

- Really badly performing sides over two or more years are likely to get a top pick (maybe 1 or 2) and another pick around the middle of the first round (maybe 7 or 8)

That's fantastic, 'Cheesecake',,, I love it. great work.

[Guest hangon007]

Nailed it, Great One!

A weighted lottery is the best idea put forward to resolve this issue. And by some margin. I'm baffled as to why the AFL hasn't moved to this system already, given all the bad press about tanking over the last few years.

It seems to me that the issue of tanking only really rears its head whenever there is an extra-ordinary amount of benefit to be gained from losing a single game. This only arises when a team is vying for a priority pick, or against another team for a very high pick (eg 1 or 2). And it only arises within the current system because the difference between a win and a loss in a single game can be a guarantee of a particular highly-valued pick.

In principle I don't think there is anything wrong with priority being given to lower performing teams. People love to blame priority picks for tanking, but the problem really is 1> the guarantee of a particular highly-valued pick and 2> the massive difference in reward for losing a single game vs winning it (such as finishing on 4 wins rather than 5, or finishing last rather than 2nd last).

You do not need to chuck the baby out with the bath water. We can keep an advantage for worse performing teams, and the principle of a priority pick, but remove the enormous advantage associated with the result of a single game. And the system The Great One has outlined here does exactly that!

My preferred option would be, as follows.

- Weighted lottery for the bottom eights sides (the top sides are hardly tanking, are they?)

- Determine the formula for the number of balls each team gets using both ladder position and games won (so, the lower you finish the greater you chance of getting a high pick, and if you are in the realm of priority picks, eg 1 to 4 wins, you chances increase exponentially with each successive loss, rather than a single cutoff point where you are suddenly greatly advantaged)

- If you fall in the realm of priority picks two or more years running then, instead of all your balls being removed from the lottery once your pick has come up, you get to leave a significantly reduced number (again based on losses) in the lottery for another pick. If your other pick comes out in the top eight you keep it, and the remaining team(s) get allocated picks 9, 10 etc.

So, end result:

- No single game determines the exact outcome of a draft pick, or provides a huge advantage if lost.

- Worse teams have a statistically better chance of getting a better pick, becoming almost a mathematical certainty of the top pick as you get closer to 0 wins.

- Really badly performing sides over two or more years are likely to get a top pick (maybe 1 or 2) and another pick around the middle of the first round (maybe 7 or 8)

This has been tried and does not stop tanking. You still have an advantage to tank ... better weighting in the draw.

(so, the lower you finish the greater you chance of getting a high pick, and if you are in the realm of priority picks, eg 1 to 4 wins, you chances increase exponentially with each successive loss, rather than a single cutoff point where you are suddenly greatly advantaged)

Edited August 8, 2011 by hangon007

[PaulRB 5,979]

The challenge is that tanking can look like player development, and player development can look like tanking. For example if/when the MFC cannot make finals I'd be keen to give games to our boarder line kids (Cook, McDonald, Fitzpatrick, etc...) before the season finished. The motivation is simply to give them a taste of the top level and inspire them for the pre-season to come, yet this may look like Tanking...

Hence, the Draft order needs to be set earlier in the year (i.e. after round 17) so that if clubs choose to focus on development they are not tarnished with the Tanking brush. Make the ladder at Rd 17 the draft order (incl priority), simple fix that decouples tanking and development.

Edited August 9, 2011 by PaulRB

[wisedog 328]

The challenge is that tanking can look like player development, and player development can look like tanking. For example if/when the MFC cannot make finals I'd be keen to give games to our boarder line kids (Cook, McDonald, Fitzpatrick, etc...) before the season finished. The motivation is simply to give them a taste of the top level and inspire them for the pre-season to come, yet this may look like Tanking...

Hence, the Draft order needs to be set earlier in the year (i.e. after round 17) so that if clubs choose to focus on development they are not tarnished with the Tanking brush. Make the ladder at Rd 17 the draft order (incl priority), simple fix that decouples tanking and development.

Well I think that kind of player development has always been around, and tolerated. The main reason Melbourne and Carlton's reputations have been tarnished so much is because our 'tanking' appeared to influence actual game day tactics.

[old55 21,402]

I don't think pick 1 v pick 2 is a big incentive for tanking - I'd be amazed if clubs 17th and 18th playing each other would tank for this advantage. Similarly the PP at the end of the first round - pick 19 is useful but not worth tanking for. Just always award end of first round PPs for less than 5 wins (like they do in the first year) and keep it at that. No need for radical change.

If you really want to shake up the whole draft Striker's idea is a beauty.

Edited August 9, 2011 by old55

[Dee Fan 3,247]

Is this a not so subtle hint to any coach that's been involved in "player development", at any club, such as Bailey for instance, that you bring up the tanking inference at you own peril.

If you are interested in working in the AFL you should just shut your mouth and let it go.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/life-bans-for-coaches-found-tanking-andrew-demetriou/story-e6frf9io-1226114285107

Asked on 3AW what would happen if a coach admitted to manipulating the result of a game, Demetriou said: ``He would never work in football again. There would be an investigation into the club and there would be severe sanctions.''

[Sir Why You Little 34,658]

Just build a winning culture within our club....i don't ever want to be involved in tanking ever again.

i think it has been responsible for some of our current problems throughout the club.

I don't think it is a healthy strategy....in 2008 i understand the philosophy, but i would never be happy to do it a second time..

[e25 5]

This has been tried and does not stop tanking. You still have an advantage to tank ... better weighting in the draw.

(so, the lower you finish the greater you chance of getting a high pick, and if you are in the realm of priority picks, eg 1 to 4 wins, you chances increase exponentially with each successive loss, rather than a single cutoff point where you are suddenly greatly advantaged)

My god.

This isn't a personal attack at all, just honest feedback on your plan to fix tanking.

It's probably the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Ever.

I can't believe how idiotic it is, and I'm convinced you are just saying it as a wind up.

That is mind boggling, if not.

[Captain Jack Jordan 32]

In my opinion we never tanked as proved by the fact that we lost the Jordy McMahon game .Richmond won it .We didn't throw it .

As for going back down to youth at all costs reform ,we don't need to for quite a while .

We bottomed out naturally just as Carlton ,Colllingwood ,Geelong and Hawks did .

Dont let people put our potential future success down to tanking .

We won our wooden spoons because we thoroughly deserved them .