The AFL have won another. But are we talking about another cover up than they lost again.

How do the AFL keep coming out on top when logic says 'you're gonna lose this one?

Even up to last night Don McClardy was fire and brimstone talk and yet today he's 'we have to cop this on the chin'.

Every thing from every body that I have read today has come across as contrived.

CC is normally quite loquacious but today 'I accept the charges and penalties' and

Bailey with so much more to lose folded over as well.

If the theatrics were in aid of the AFL; sorry, but if I saw thru it, then so did many others.

I understand that the AFL has to win these, one upmanship games so, would you as the AFL be satisfied with a lame conclusion; one that every one saw through, or should they have hired a couple of hollywood screen writers to come up with a Ben Hur finale?

Seriously it is obvious that the AFL has considerable incentives to help dissenting clubs to change their mind.

Take the QB game away or maybe allocate a couple of games at Casey etc.

So by contriving to make a point they are manipulating the draw; who would take them on?

Not even Eddie is that stupid.

The AFL have won another. But are we talking about another cover up than they lost again.

How do the AFL keep coming out on top when logic says 'you're gonna lose this one?

Even up to last night Don McClardy was fire and brimstone talk and yet today he's 'we have to cop this on the chin'.

Every thing from every body that I have read today has come across as contrived.

CC is normally quite loquacious but today 'I accept the charges and penalties' and

Bailey with so much more to lose folded over as well.

If the theatrics were in aid of the AFL; sorry, but if I saw thru it, then so did many others.

I understand that the AFL has to win these, one upmanship games so, would you as the AFL be satisfied with a lame conclusion; one that every one saw through, or should they have hired a couple of hollywood screen writers to come up with a Ben Hur finale?

Seriously it is obvious that the AFL has considerable incentives to help dissenting clubs to change their mind.

Take the QB game away or maybe allocate a couple of games at Casey etc.

So by contriving to make a point they are manipulating the draw; who would take them on?

Not even Eddie is that stupid.

I think its ok coz its list management

NOT tanking

Seriously though if its a 500k fine and penalties for not tanking Id hate to think what it would have cost if we had

It does give a new addition to the Phyrric victory examples.

It is so hard without knowing the details (800 pages) and I sure hope that our reasons are sound but it does seem like we MFC have gone into another administrative, lesser of many evils, cut the losses and run Tank.

I guess there will never be athink tank around our club again.

The greatest act of spin was by the media, convincing the general football cognoscenti that normal tactics when employed by a bottom 4 team, now conspire towards a morally bankrupt pursuit in the form of "tanking."

To somehow shift the mindset of people that something generally accepted was now totally abhorrent, and should be roundly condemned... Was pure genius.

Tanking = footy's war on terror.

Good point Jens.

Funny how the same journos who claimed that clubs would be mad to win an extra game and miss out on the priority pick now go on about the evils of tanking.

Good point Jens.

Funny how the same journos who claimed that clubs would be mad to win an extra game and miss out on the priority pick now go on about the evils of tanking.

And are highly selective in the object of their criticism, ignoring one lot of "tankers" while condemning one other.

Rank hypocrites and Wilson is the biggest.

The greatest act of spin was by the media, convincing the general football cognoscenti that normal tactics when employed by a bottom 4 team, now conspire towards a morally bankrupt pursuit in the form of "tanking."

To somehow shift the mindset of people that something generally accepted was now totally abhorrent, and should be roundly condemned... Was pure genius.

Tanking = footy's war on terror.

It's a fair point you make, but it was generally accepted practice as long as clubs were subtle about it. Clubs became increasingly less subtle, and of course it was Melbourne who broke the non-subtlety mould.

Lets not forget that he media didn't just start beating this up this year. The evils of tanking was being raised back in 09, it was just assumed that nothing would come of it, because how can you prove it?

How indeed.

Not sure Melbourne was less subtle, but the focus on it intensified, and I'm not sure we could have done much else & still got the priority pick.

Not getting it is the only thing that would've saved us the retroactive scrutiny.

As it is, they found no decent evidence.

We've taken a symbolic slap on the wrist for a crime most people are already convinced we're guilty of.

We've also managed to appease the powers that be to minimal detriment, rather than get on their bad side.

There was no way to come out unscathed, but I'm not sure we really did much wrong.

Wrong place, wrong time.

Even Connolly had to take a whack for a relatively innocuous sarcastic remark, because of his incredibly poor timing and the absence of any other real violation.

Nothing in it, but the league felt they had to be seen to do something.

I remember hearing Andy Maher the morning of the Kruezer Cup game, saying it made no sense for either side to win, with of course his Carlton Scarf on.

The media was 50/50 promoting it and condemming it.

...

Lets not forget that he media didn't just start beating this up this year. The evils of tanking was being raised back in 09, it was just assumed that nothing would come of it, because how can you prove it?

How indeed.

Yes, that's correct, and that's why our timing was unfortunate.

The other clubs were able to largely avoid scrutiny and go unchecked.

We did it just as the microscope intensified.

Then with convenient selective amnesia, the football public has forgotten how much of a microscope was on us back then, and we have harpies like Wilson demanding we be punished as if it was somehow ignored in 2009.

If there was any concrete evidence, we'd have been crucified then.

I think we did develop a cavalier attitude afterwards, assuming we were scot free.

Indicated by reports of a club official (CC maybe?) telling sponsors at functions that we "made sure" we got the priority pick.

This hurt our chances of it fading into distant memory.

Although I recall either WJ or redleg having a similar story about Carlton officials..?

It just got to the point where the media could smell blood in the water and weren't going to let it to until something eventuates that they could write about to fill papers.

I don't think there was any real uproar from the football public.

It was more a novelty - another barb for their dee supporting mates.

Good point Jens.

Funny how the same journos who claimed that clubs would be mad to win an extra game and miss out on the priority pick now go on about the evils of tanking.

This point needs to be stuffed into the faces of these hypocrites. You can taste the hypocrisy it is so damn thick.

And are highly selective in the object of their criticism, ignoring one lot of "tankers" while condemning one other.

Rank hypocrites and Wilson is the biggest.

Dimitriou and the misnamed Integrity Commissioners or whatever their title would, by their very selective choice if target run her very close in that race.

After all, Ms Wilson is just obsessed with Schwab: AD had an opportunity to either open the investigation to include all who indulged in 'list management' or to have just said "Brock is an embittered dimwit" or words to that effect but chose not to. He is the bigger hypocrite; she is just a fool.

I have a friend who is a footy journo at one of the major Melbourne newspapers, and he/she told me that the reason their paper has gone so hard on the tanking issue, is because the AFL has for years so doggedly refused to accept that tanking exists. Essentially, without the repeated denial, it wouldn't have been as big a story. It just so happened that Brock, gave the media the material to really go hard after Demetriou and his denials.

Incidentally, I wonder whether Mike Sheahan as a Melbourne supporter and Gerard Healy as a former player wish they had never had Brock on the show that night??

On the subject of the penalties, which have now left many media types baffled (how can we be cleared of tanking, and yet be fined $500k??) , it seems to me that all parties were in on the deal. Melbourne wanted to be cleared of tanking, and the AFL wanted a penalty of some description, and neither party wanted to go to the courts, but both were prepared to go there if necessary. So we offered up Connolly as a scapegoat, who for his part agreed to be the said scapegoat in return for a year off (fully paid), we got cleared of tanking and the AFL was able to save face by being seen to have run an investigation that (somewhat) recognised that foul play was afoot, BUT also showed that Demetriou had been right all along in denying the existence of tanking.

To the tune of MacNamara's Band:

Oh there's tanking and there's tanking but what does it really mean?.

Is it water storage, opting out or some kind of war machine?

Andrew Dimetriou's not so worried as he's counting every penny

of Melbourne’s half a million singing "tanks for the mem’ry".