There is nothing wrong with the motive of securing as many high draft picks as you can. That is not the issue. This can be achieved through a number of means (eg trading players for picks)

The issue is motive to deliberately underperform in a game. That is the issue

Yes. There are 2 ways to do it. The club took the 2nd option. Is that what it should have done???

The motives of the MFC were to gain as many high draft picks as quick as we could.

Is that unlawful or Tanking?

It is hard to say as we did not "break" any AFL laws. But should we have done it??

You have been running around thread to thread claiming we should be punished, and now you are not sure it was punishable?!

You are such jam jar that is hard to open!

Yes. There are 2 ways to do it. The club took the 2nd option. Is that what it should have done???

Why don't you complete the poll. I would love to know your feelings on this.

You have been running around thread to thread claiming we should be punished, and now you are not sure it was punishable?!

You are such jam jar that is hard to open!

No. I think any club found to be tanking should be punished. Its quite simple.

The draft must become a lottery. No it is not fair, but it will stop any club from lying down.

Why don't you complete the poll. I would love to know your feelings on this.

Not enough options rpfc. I started to do it, then pulled the pin. Its too narrow, but cudos for doing it.

so many shades of grey to this poll (fifty I beleive...mmmmm). But I will take all questions at sensible face value. I will take it that foreign positions doesnt include Jetta rucking against Sandilands. Also older players being dropped for youth -ie dropping Rivers now as he is playing well.

Having said that- there was one example not given

Jurrah kicking three quick ones against StKilda and looking the difference between the two teams and then being benched for almost a quarter.

I'll stick my neck out -This one event that has been mentioned that Bailey did is tanking to lose a game of the highest order IF and I stress IF the incident happened as mentioned ( I have a foggy memory) with no rational explanation (injury ?). It has hard to draw any other inference than "the game was getting a wee bit too close" so we better get this match winner off.

No. I think any club found to be tanking should be punished. Its quite simple.

The draft must become a lottery. No it is not fair, but it will stop any club from lying down.

Really, so how would this lottery work? There are means & ways of manipulating any system.

Why don't you complete the poll. I would love to know your feelings on this.

Probably hasn't had anyone to tell him the answers yet

You are such jam jar that is hard to open!

That is gold. Am I allowed to use that ?

Not enough options rpfc. I started to do it, then pulled the pin. Its too narrow, but cudos for doing it.

So what other options should be in there in your opinion?

MFC should be stripped of all 2012 premiership points and all premierships for past 47 years if tanking is proven.

So what other options should be in there in your opinion?

* Maybe

* I want answers

Ahh, now we are getting it...

But if it was 'proven' that players deliberately perfrormed poorly I would expect something a scandal similar to this:

http://historyengine.richmond.edu/episodes/view/4957

Well played. Can't believe I didn't read it that way first time - thinking cap clearly not attached. Good work.

I have a problem with the notion of "Tanking". We all joke about this but what some will have it as Tanking is really legitimate list and player management..

To me 'real' tanking would be if the coach and or players actually played ont he day to LOSE. What many confuse as tankig is simply a club acknowledgiing their season is over and there are more important prioroties than actually getting 4 points from any game. So what may result from players being convalesced early and /or seeking some blooding of newbies is that you have a less competitive team than had you chosen whats refered to as the best 22. These 22 may not even be available but on occasions some of these players might have been had they not been trotted off for operations or some other form of care instead of playing out a few non essential games.

Who actually has the right or power to deternine where any player should play ? Certainly not anyone outside of the club in question and yet its these very people that ask the question !!!

And you knwo what...even if a team does want to go out to lose...who cares. If theres a bigger picture in play, what does it matter. Each to their own. Why should we care what any other team does or them us.

I have a problem with the notion of "Tanking". We all joke about this but what some will have it as Tanking is really legitimate list and player management..

To me 'real' tanking would be if the coach and or players actually played ont he day to LOSE. What many confuse as tankig is simply a club acknowledgiing their season is over and there are more important prioroties than actually getting 4 points from any game. So what may result from players being convalesced early and /or seeking some blooding of newbies is that you have a less competitive team than had you chosen whats refered to as the best 22. These 22 may not even be available but on occasions some of these players might have been had they not been trotted off for operations or some other form of care instead of playing out a few non essential games.

Who actually has the right or power to deternine where any player should play ? Certainly not anyone outside of the club in question and yet its these very people that ask the question !!!

And you knwo what...even if a team does want to go out to lose...who cares. If theres a bigger picture in play, what does it matter. Each to their own. Why should we care what any other team does or them us.

Well there's the rub.

IMO - 'tanking' is so fraught with complexity that Demetriou has probably got it right - it doesn't exist.

Now bear with me here - I am talking about players agreeing to play poorly and lose for whatever reason. And that is the water's edge.

Everything else is just clubs maximising their god given right to play within the rules.

If you want to legislate to minimise the practice you can - but don't try and tell me that Warnock playing forward is 'proof' - it isn't. And don't try to tell me Dunn playing is 'proof' - it isn't.

Well there's the rub.

IMO - 'tanking' is so fraught with complexity that Demetriou has probably got it right - it doesn't exist.

Now bear with me here - I am talking about players agreeing to play poorly and lose for whatever reason. And that is the water's edge.

Everything else is just clubs maximising their god given right to play within the rules.

If you want to legislate to minimise the practice you can - but don't try and tell me that Warnock playing forward is 'proof' - it isn't. And don't try to tell me Dunn playing is 'proof' - it isn't.

Proof is a tape of Jim Stynes voice specifically instructing Bailey to lose.

Anything shy of that and they're pis$ing in the wind.

interesting poll rpfc

I agree with those who say that the only way to rid the AFL of tanking once and for all is to make the draft a lottery. As long as there is a 'reward' for coming last clubs will always put the cue in the rack and play the young blokes, experiment with positions and put injured players into surgery ahead of time, becasue only a fool wouldnt stat planning for the next season.

But after seeing the blatant tanking that went on in the olympic badminton the AFL seems pretty discreet!

We didnt deliberatley try to loose in '09, but retiring Yze, Robbo, White, Wheatley etc didnt allow us to compete as well as we might have in the short term. If that is tanking in a punishable form then every club is guilty

So what other options should be in there in your opinion?

"none of the above" would help in many categories.

Most polls don't carry that one and should.

The lottery system is the only way to stop tanking.

To me, the big question is the motive.

All can be considered tanking if the motive is explicitly to lose. But, if the number one priority is not winning, instead say future development then no, that is not tanking.

Motives are however very hard to prove either way.

Spot on. Would right my own speil on the situation but that is pretty much it word for word.

Tanking is all about the motives for those actions, not the actions themselves.

All the actions except for the first are fine and probably expected by everyone if your season is shot and the focus has shifted to preparing for the following seasons. If the motivation for those actions is to avoid winning games for better draft position then you are "tanking" and deserve to be punished.

I'm pretty balck and white about these sort of things even though I hate Collingwood.

Good poll.

To the posters I am about to point out - I don't wish to single you out for ridicule - the point of this thread is to illustrate the different views of tanking that people have and the apparent fact that prosecuting 'tanking' is impossible.

However, could the 4 posters who thought MFC players deliberately played without sufficient effort explain where they are coming from?

I doesn't really sit well with me - I expected that one to completely empty.

I could have worded it poorly, but would love to know if that is the case.

Tanking is what Paul Roos did during the NAB cup a few year ago.

Told Mcveigh or whoever it was from the bench to go forward but "Make sure you don't kick a goal."

I thought after the Richmond game that it appeared the players and FD were on different pages with a defiance in the playing group. No matter what moves were made in the coaches box , the players seemed determined to win that game and so sabotage our chances for the priority pick.

My opinion on tanking is that it is comparable to theft. To put it simply ranges from minor to severe. From like stealing paper clips at the office to armed robbery at the bank.

If a side is having a bad year and eases off when all hope for a successful season is lost so as to improve draft position or to blood new players then thats not so bad and has a positive net result in the medium term.

If a side however goes into a whole season(or two) with the aim of playing poorly so as to manipulate the cream of the draft then that is bad. I am of the opinion we tanked for two whole seasons as part of some flawed grand strategy which did not go down well with the FD and players and now has come back to bite us. Most instances of tanking fall into the minor necessary evil category but in our case and with Carlton we invoked bad Karma.

We didn't tank for 2 seasons, that is rot.

We had a young, developing side and for kids to get any better - you have to play them!!

That is the common theory - although now, its probably established that youngsters develop quicker and better

with quality older players around them, its easy to say now we know this.

On the other side of the coin, we have lacked those quality players and we lacked leaders.

I believe we done the best we could the majority of those years - and then when we didn't get the results

we had hoped for, then we 'experimented, tried to develop and unearth youngsters' - knowing the result would most likely

be a loss and that in the long term that wouldnt be a bad thing.

I am not sure we had choices, we sure as hell didn't have talent on the field and trying to unearth a young gem -

instead of regurgitating Bruce and Green, seemed like the right thing to do.

Everything is easy to look back in hindsight.

But, look at our list now and the position we are in and some ppl are calling for Moloneys head and rightfully so

half the time - although probably not this week, now our older players back in 2008-9 were playing ten rungs below what

Moloney is putting out now, so our options were very limited and we had no choice but to develop and play kids.

IMO this isnt tanking Freo played Hawks in 2010 down in Launceston rested half therir side and got smashed, their ladder position was not going to change. The following week they played the Hawks at Subi in an elimination final and smashed them.

They looked ahead their players needed to refresh so they went in with an undermaned side down in Tassie, they weren't deliberatley going in to lose but if they didn't win it wasn't the end of the world, which is where I think we were at under Bailey and that is why a lot of kids got games without really earning them

yes, and, like Garland forward against Essendon, it was a reasonable thing to try.

If your experiment works, you're a genius; if it doesn't, the vultures scream either tanking or sack the fool.

And the coaches who take no chances and have a "play safe" game-plan, they kill the joy of the game and bore the crap out of everyone.

Until someone proves the instruction was to to lose the game, this is all just bullying and ignorance.