THE BREATH OF LIFE - DRAFT ASSISTANCE by Whispering Jack

How poorly does a team have to perform before it qualifies for draft assistance under the current AFL rules?

Nobody really knows the answer because the outcome of an application is based on vague guidelines. The AFL Commission is due to draw on these when it determines Melbourne's latest such application at its forthcoming meeting next week.

We do know that an application by the club was rejected last year after a number of clubs objected, mainly on the basis of how could the AFL allow such a thing so soon after the so-called "tanking" enquiry (so much for the independence of the AFL Commission)?

We shouldn't forget that the two clubs who raged loudest against Melbourne last year were Hawthorn and Collingwood whose presidents joined then AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou on a trip to the United States to study issues surrounding "equalisation" of sporting competitions. Talk about Dracula running the blood bank - the first thing Andrew Newbold and Eddie McGuire did when they stepped off the plane and onto the tarmac at Tullamarine was to complain loud and hard about giving any AFL draft assistance to a team that won only two games in season 2013 and four in the year before.

Never mind that their own clubs gratefully accepted priority picks less than a decade earlier which helped land both of them premierships. The Hawks won four games in 2004 and, as a result picked up Jarryd Roughhead at selection 2 (with Buddy Franklin at 4) in that year's national draft while the Magpies snuck in with five wins in 2005. Their priority pick at 2 was Dale Thomas (they got Scott Pendelbury at 5) and nobody made too much noise about the fact that they somehow managed to lose the last eight matches of the season to get their prize. Carlton managed even better when they snared the priority pick three years in a row culminating with the Kreuzer Cup of 2007, completing the "grand slam of tanking" after they lost eleven in a row to finish the season. Yet, Demetriou continued to publicly maintain that there was no such thing as tanking in the AFL.

The rules have changed and clubs now need to plead a special case to obtain draft assistance. Melbourne's plight over the best part of an entire decade is well known. The events that led to the "tanking" affair took place in 2009 and the club is under new management making early inroads into its precarious on field situation. To raise that issue again as a bar to assistance five years later would be unconscionable. How many times can a club be punished for doing the same thing, especially after the stronger, more established AFL clubs got away with little more than a cursory look?

No, if the AFL is to act responsibly in dealing with Melbourne's application, it must do so on its merits and not pre judge it as Football Operations Manager Mark Evans did recently when he cast doubt the application's chances of succeeding.

So while a mere four or five wins was no long ago considered enough to merit a priority pick for the likes of Evans' most recent club Hawthorn, Collingwood and on multiple occasions Carlton, Melbourne has to go begging to the AFL after nine losing seasons and on ten wins in the last three years or an average over that time of just 3⅓ wins per season. The thought is a vulgar to me as the fraction at the end of that number.

Melbourne is a club that had no nominees for the 2014 Rising Star, no players in the recently announced AFL Under 22 team, no players on the forty man All-Australian shortlist and not surprisingly, received no mentions at last week's MVP. Melbourne has been one of the hardest hit clubs in terms of recent AFL innovations including the rules relating to the introduction of the new franchise clubs and free agency. Tom Scully was taken when barely out of his teens for compensation that is barely kicking in four years later. The club has lost Jared Rivers, Brent Moloney, Colin Sylvia and most likely now, James Frawley to free agency. Again, it will take time to determine whether the compensation for their loss turns out to be fair and equitable.

On top of that, the Demons have been struck blows from unforeseen places to players who under normal circumstances would be close to marquee items, helping to win games and draw crowds to its fixtures. I refer here to Mitch Clark, Liam Jurrah and Austin Wonaeamirri who, but for their extraordinary, sad and well documented circumstances, would be leading a formidable Melbourne forward line capable helping the club to kick winning scores instead of the lows to which we have become accustomed of late.

And you can't blame poor administration or coaching on these things. Last year, one of the reasons given for not awarding draft assistance was that the club had the likes of Jesse Hogan in the wings and Clark returning from injury. Look how that turned out!

If the AFL is at all serious, it will realise that the Melbourne Football Club is crying out for help and that it must endorse its claim for assistance by giving it an early first round priority pick commensurate to that which was given to Hawthorn, Collingwood and Carlton and the incredible concessions given to the new franchise clubs in the recent past. Such a boost will help the club's efforts to rise beyond just being competitive and save it from the cruel death meted out to the Fitzroy Football Club two decades ago.

If the AFL values its integrity, it will deal out a fair and just result to Melbourne's application for draft assistance to give it the breath of life it so sorely needs.

Hear Hear! A solid, balanced and well considered piece that hacks like Damien Barrett could only dream of writing.

Not gonna happen.

It's all our own fault and we should be grateful for existing at all and propping up the really big clubs as they strive for premierships and we attempt to merely survive.

Gosh WJ, you don't expect such a well reasoned approach to have any effect of those money-grubbers at the AFL HQ.

Please forward that to the club! It's an excellent summary of our plight.

Not gonna happen.

It's all our own fault and we should be grateful for existing at all and propping up the really big clubs as they strive for premierships and we attempt to merely survive.

... err ... yes ... um ... we all know we drove MC out of the game and Neeld's fingerprints were all over LJ's machete ...

Send that off to the AFL website and see if they're game to publish it.

If the AFL values its integrity

What integrity?

THE BREATH OF LIFE - DRAFT ASSISTANCE by Whispering Jack

How poorly does a team have to perform before it qualifies for draft assistance under the current AFL rules?

Nobody really knows the answer because the outcome of an application is based on vague guidelines.

You pretty much nailed the situation in your first two sentences. The AFL would be better off televising the spinning of a wheel of fortune to determine whether we'll get one as at least there would be some transparency there.

Send that off to the AFL website and see if they're game to publish it.

It ain't gunna happen!

I don't think the PP is an issue. What is an issue is who we've picked.

Hawks and Collingwood, as you point out, got it right but sadly we got it so very very wrong.

The PP concept was wrong and that's why they changed it. I've been told the PP is there for "extraordinary" circumstances. It will be interesting to see if Clark fits that catagory. I doubt it unless he gets to another club for nothing and even then it's hard to see. He's just had a significant injury but not nearly as bad as Alex Johnson or Moribito.

Time to stand on our own two feet and get some of our picks right. We've had about 13 top 20 picks since 2007 and I reckon we've got about 3 or 4 that can play, none of them anywhere near A grade.

One pick after the first round is hardly going to make a significant difference and I'm sick of getting handouts.

If the AFL values its integrity, it will deal out a fair and just result to Melbourne's application for draft assistance to give it the breath of life it so sorely needs.

You had me right up til the last line Jack...how did those two words manage to concurrently exist in the one sentence !!

( otherwise I agree 100% )

Very eloquently put WJ.

If the AFL don't recognise our circumstances in 2014, and grant meaningful assistance, then let's face it, they never will! What's more, the concept of 'equalisation' will be meaningless for the ill-fated 'poor-relation' clubs of the competition. It will be there for all the football world to see ..... the AFL don't care one iota about our plight, and in all likelihood, it will sound a death knell over the medium term for one of the AFL's foundation clubs. Let's hope this isn't the way it transpires.

If the AFL values its integrity, it will deal out a fair and just result to Melbourne's application for draft assistance to give it the breath of life it so sorely needs.

No chance then ...

Time to stand on our own two feet and get some of our picks right. We've had about 13 top 20 picks since 2007 and I reckon we've got about 3 or 4 that can play, none of them anywhere near A grade.

One pick after the first round is hardly going to make a significant difference and I'm sick of getting handouts.

Amen, Bob!

(in an entirely non-religious sense…)

I don't think the PP is an issue. What is an issue is who we've picked.

Hawks and Collingwood, as you point out, got it right but sadly we got it so very very wrong.

The PP concept was wrong and that's why they changed it. I've been told the PP is there for "extraordinary" circumstances. It will be interesting to see if Clark fits that catagory. I doubt it unless he gets to another club for nothing and even then it's hard to see. He's just had a significant injury but not nearly as bad as Alex Johnson or Moribito.

Time to stand on our own two feet and get some of our picks right. We've had about 13 top 20 picks since 2007 and I reckon we've got about 3 or 4 that can play, none of them anywhere near A grade.

One pick after the first round is hardly going to make a significant difference and I'm sick of getting handouts.

Agree we have stuffed up our drafting.

As far as handouts go we have had 2 PP's pick 1 and 17 in the time Carlton have had 4. Don't recall them refusing them. Why should we refuse anything we get?

At the end of 2012, Port Adelaide were at a lower point than us - both on and off the field. They were broke, uncompetitive, sacked their coach not so long before and lost some playing talent that would probably still near their best team today. Two years later, they are back to back finalists, this year are top 4 and playing a great balanced style of football. I'm not sure they can beat Hawthorn but I'm reasonably sure they will score better than 90 points which gives them some chance.

They have rebuilt from hard work and astute appointments and recruiting.

I reckon MFC has to get rid of the welfare mentailty. That said, I wouldn't knock back a concesssion pick.

Grabbed this and posted it elsewhere with WJ at the top too, because that's a superbly measured piece.

At the end of 2012, Port Adelaide were at a lower point than us - both on and off the field. They were broke, uncompetitive, sacked their coach not so long before and lost some playing talent that would probably still near their best team today. Two years later, they are back to back finalists, this year are top 4 and playing a great balanced style of football. I'm not sure they can beat Hawthorn but I'm reasonably sure they will score better than 90 points which gives them some chance.

They have rebuilt from hard work and astute appointments and recruiting.

I reckon MFC has to get rid of the welfare mentailty. That said, I wouldn't knock back a concesssion pick.

People need to stop treating Port Adelaide as the rule and start treating them as the exception. The last club to mirror such a last-to-first mentality was ourselves back in the late 1990s. It's a rarity, not a commonality. The Geelong and Brisbane dynasties, Hawthorn's dominance and Sydney's continued excellence are a result of years of drafting and in all cases the result of various handouts - Geelong getting steals for father-son picks, Hawthorn getting PPs and Sydney getting the CoLA. In fact, I would argue that Port are the first club to seriously challenge teams that have had handouts (along with North, although to a lesser extent) since certainly Collingwood and arguably since they won the flag in 2004.

I don't think the PP is an issue. What is an issue is who we've picked.

Hawks and Collingwood, as you point out, got it right but sadly we got it so very very wrong.

The PP concept was wrong and that's why they changed it. I've been told the PP is there for "extraordinary" circumstances. It will be interesting to see if Clark fits that catagory. I doubt it unless he gets to another club for nothing and even then it's hard to see. He's just had a significant injury but not nearly as bad as Alex Johnson or Moribito.

Time to stand on our own two feet and get some of our picks right. We've had about 13 top 20 picks since 2007 and I reckon we've got about 3 or 4 that can play, none of them anywhere near A grade.

One pick after the first round is hardly going to make a significant difference and I'm sick of getting handouts.

I trust you are equally sick of getting the negative handouts the AFL hands out in other ways. You will probably say if we fix things we won't be in that situation either. When we are as powerful as C'wood that will probably be true. But will we sink first?

While I agree 1 pick won't probably make a significant difference (it is a lottery anyway) but your position seems similar to telling a drowning man that it is better if we don't throw you a life jacket while lobbing the odd brick at them to toughen them up. A better course is to throw the life buoy a few feet away and tell him to swim to it.

As far as handouts go we have had 2 PP's pick 1 and 17 in the time Carlton have had 4. Don't recall them refusing them. Why should we refuse anything we get?

Carlton tanked so it was ok for us to.

Carlton got PP's so it's ok for us to.

I don't want to be like Carlton.

I trust you are equally sick of getting the negative handouts the AFL hands out in other ways. You will probably say if we fix things we won't be in that situation either. When we are as powerful as C'wood that will probably be true. But will we sink first?

While I agree 1 pick won't probably make a significant difference (it is a lottery anyway) but your position seems similar to telling a drowning man that it is better if we don't throw you a life jacket while lobbing the odd brick at them to toughen them up. A better course is to throw the life buoy a few feet away and tell him to swim to it.

North are no more financial or higher profile than us and they are in the top 4 and will get benefits next year. I well remember Brad Scott saying MFC should not be getting all the attention when both were cellar dwellers.

Rather than throw the drowning man a brick to toughen them up I'd teach them how to swim.

I'm surprised so many think Jack's piece is "balanced". I think it presents very well one side of the argument. I just don't agree with the argument and wanted to present the other view that many MFC supporters know support.

Much more important than a PP is the ability to fund a well resourced FD. It's why we stuffed it up so badly, we just couldn't afford or attract quality people. I think those days are behind us and we should act like a club that is confident it can achieve success without special assistance.

Carlton tanked so it was ok for us to.

Carlton got PP's so it's ok for us to.

I don't want to be like Carlton.

I do! They have won 16 bloody premierships. A sad but true fact!

Send that off to the AFL website and see if they're game to publish it.

?? Publish it where exactly?

The AFL website isn't a site for fans to submit opinion pieces.

I do! They have won 16 bloody premierships. A sad but true fact!

But not because of the PPs. Their last flag was 1995 when the cheque book ruled supreme.