leucopogon

The only way we'll start getting good crowds is by playing exciting, passionate football. Based on last weeks effort, that doesn't look like its going to happen anytime soon.

God I hope not, doesn't he have a bunch of Daughters? No offence to the girls out there.

All this tanking talk and the way to solve the problem got me thinking. Anyway here goes: - Scrap priority picks in the draft completely - Expand the comp to 18 teams - Shorten the H&A season so each team plays each other only once (then reverse the venues every year) ---> So H&A season is 17 rounds - Top 8 play off in September for the Premiership as it is now - Bottom 10 play off in September for the top 10 draft picks using an adapted final 8 system as follows ----> Arrange the bottom 10 in reverse order (so 18th spot is the equivalent of finishing top of the ladder if you get my drift) ----> Now, week one of the "Draft Finals" (last weekend of August) is two elimination finals 9 vs 12 and 10 vs 11. The two losers are out and receive picks 10 and 9 respectively in the draft. First weekend in September sees the two winners from the previous weekend play another elimination final against teams in positions 13 & 14, while the remaining play off in qualifying finals (18 vs 15 and 17 vs 16). Qualifying finals winners get a week off while the losers play the winners of the two Elimination finals and so on and so forth until we get a winner who receives the number one pick in the draft. Anyone still reading? okay good. Advantages of this system Fixturing is much fairer, you can't complain about having to play strong teams twice in the year, etc Season shorter so potentially less impact on players, perhaps allowing them to extend their careers (in terms of number of years able to compete at the highest level). Longer off-season period more time for those on long-term injury lists to recuperate. More excitement for the fans, especially fans of the bottom teams as there is more at stake. Now the drawbacks Less home & away fixtures means less money for the AFL (this is a big one, the gate revenues from a full 5 rounds are lost in this system 40 games in total). Note however that this would be offset by 17 extra H&A games due to the expansion of the comp to 18 teams plus 11 extra "finals" games in the bottom 10 "Draft Finals" giving a total of 28 extra games so only a deficit of 12 games on the current system. Not too much impact. Plus, the fact the season is shorter would probably mean more interest in the fewer games and more finals games means bigger crowds I would think, or at least hope. Fewer H&A also means fewer blockbusters unfortunately so that would impact badly on revenue. Ticket prices likely to go up as a result of this. Talent pool of footballers diluted with more teams (but it's going to happen anyway so you can't fight it, also it just means more guys will get a chance to play AFL instead of lingering on lists for a couple of years and then being cast off, like Fergs, Godders, etc) Shorter season means less of the year for AFL fans to be obsessed with it all (I actually think this is a good thing, but I'm sure plenty wouldn't agree with me). So...dare I ask your opinions on this?

A bottom 8 finals series to determine the high picks is the way to go, I'm convinced now.

Okay radical idea number 2: Teams in the bottom 4 at the end of the Home and Away season, play a top 4 draft pick mini finals or world cup soccer style "group" series. It runs concurrently with the actual finals series and the final finishing order determines the order of the top 4 draft picks. Now that would be exciting. Compete for the spoon and then play in september for draft picks. P.S. if this ever got up, i reckon they'd need to scrap the NAB cup. This system could work hand in hand with Gouga's idea about the bottom 8 receiving picks 1-8 in reverse order to what they get them now. Instead of the bottom 4 competing for the top 4 draft picks it could be the entire bottom 8 playing a "draft finals" in september so all teams get to play.

Just to keep floggin' a dead horse. I've run through last season's results towards the end of the year and here's a summary: Richmond were the first team to be mathematically "out of the finals" after Rd 15. Their record from this point forward was Played 7, Won 2, Lost 5. Melbourne were next after Rd 17. Record: P 5, W 2, L 3. Then Carlton in Rd 18. Record: P 4, W 0, L 4. Then finally WBulldogs in Rd 21. Record: P 1, W 0, L 1. This gives us a Lottery Pool as follows: Melbourne 40% win/loss ratio Richmond 28.5% w/l ratio Carlton 0% WB 0% To make this system "fairer" teams would have to qualify for the "spoon pool" by playing at least 3 games after their finals hopes are gone, in other words you have to be out of the finals race before the start of round 20. So in the above case you get more balls in the draft lottery based on your win/loss ratio from the point forward of when you were out of the finals race. So lets say Carlton get the baseline minimum of 10 balls, Melbourne get 10 + 40 (=50) and Richmond get 10 + 29 (=39). Okay I think i'll give up now. Edit: just imagine how [censored] you'd be if this was the way it really worked and Carlton still drew pick 1 in the lottery!! haha

Okay, I see both yours and RR's points on this. I would just like a reason to be interested in the footy when my team is out of the finals race, that's all. I'm sure others feel the same way as I do.

Okay, how about this. You even out the rewards that are on offer by taking the average of a team's results once they are out of finals contention, so the team languishing on the bottom doesn't have more opportunties to accumulate lottery balls. This would then be a blanket incentive for teams to at least compete once they're out of the finals race. Don't forget that I advocate scrapping the priority picks as well, so what they're playing for is a "better probability" of a higher draft pick. I can't see anything too wrong with this system.

Yes, first thing should be scrap the priority picks, it's clear that it is what's driving this whole tanking business. Plus I think we can say for ourselves, even when you do get priority picks, it doesn't always help very much (cough, Sylvia).

Do you seriously reckon (Carlton aside) that teams would tank the first half of a season just so they could blitz the second half for extra lottery picks in the draft? I wouldn't think it would be tolerated by fans, players, or sponsors. At least having some incentive to compete for those that are out of the finals race would add a lot more interest in this league of ours that has no "relegation battle" type scenario.

yep you guys are right, they need to get rid of priority picks completely and making it a lottery would be better. However, how about this for a zany idea. When a team reaches a point where they are out of finals contention (i.e. mathematical impossibility) They enter into a pool (kind of like a wooden spoon sub-competition) and henceforth any win they have earns them extra "tickets" in the draft lottery. At least that would be some kind of incentive for teams (and equally importantly, their fans) to maintain a competitive mindset and have a decent dip towards the end of the year. Games where two bottom teams clashed could be worth double "tickets" for even more interest.

Thanks for the advice mate, or are you trying to psych me out already? LOL I realise Hodge is out for Rd 1, but I've got enough decent back up in there anyway (I hope). As for Kepler Bradley he seemed cheap. That was my draft strategy. Get a bunch of expensive stars that I think are in for a big year and then fill out the squad with undervalued players that I think will improve or make a strong comeback from injury. Its all a learning experience for me, I've never played Supercoach before, so I'm not expecting to do that well. And I thought I went bargain basement with my rucks. Looking at last years supercoach stats, it seemed that ruck was not typically a very high scoring position, hence I went the cheap option and got two chepies (Meesen and Kruezer) and my starting division is pretty cheap as well Seaby and Leuenberger. Seaby often rests up forward and kicks goals too as a bonus. We'll see how it all pans out.

The fact that Libba's come out to say this is good, but I'm sure the scum at Carlton are defending themselves by saying its just sour grapes from a FORMER employee of the club. Carlton make me increasingly sick and I wish them all the worst going forward....in fact, as punishment (to their scummy fans) they should be relocated to the gold coast. Although they'd probably get more concessions if they did that. I've gotta ask this question though: What can the AFL do about tanking? There just doesn't seem to be any logical solution to it that I can see. Perhaps if teams at the bottom of the ladder were to receive premiership points for losing instead of for winning this might be an incentive for them at the tail end of the year.

Melbourne FC, fine if you're a member of the A-League. Camp as a row of tents if you ask me

Crap we need Green in the middle! He is and always has been a natural forward pocket. The other poster was right, Daniher really did a number on this guy's career. After this 2000 season I always thought Green was going to be the next Matty Lloyd (without the diving and cheating tactics). Instead like every good forward we seem to bring through, they end going into the midfield wilderness and become average squad players. We have the cattle in the midfield now to not need to use Green in there. Blokes like Brock, Jones, JMac, Sylvia, Moloney, and even Bruce are all better in the guts than Green. Put him back in the forward line Bails!

I'm in League 3 Procrastinators Defenders 1. Michael Johnson (Fremantle) 2. Roughead (Hawks) 3. Petterd (Melbourne) 4. Neagle (Ess) 5. Nicoski (WCE) 6. Bradley (Fremantle) 7. Chad Cornes (Port) 8. David Myers (Ess) 9. Daniel Bradshaw (Bris) Midfield 10. Nick Stevens (Carl) 11. Luke Hodge (Hawthorn) 12. Gary Ablett Jr. (Geel) 13. Cale Morton (Melbourne) 14. Nathan Jones (Melbourne) 15. Rhys Palmer (Fremantle) 16. Danyle Pearce (Port) 17. Bartel (Geelong) Ruck 18. Meesen (Melbourne) 19. Seaby (WCE) 20. Kreuzer (Carlton) 21. Leuenberger (Bris) Forwards 22. Colin Garland (Melbourne) 23. Cyril Rioli (Hawks) 24. Fevola (Carlton) 25. Chris Egan (Coll) 26. Johnathon Brown (Bris) 27. Pavlich (Fremantle) 28. Nathan Thompson (Roos) 29. Buddy Franklin (Hawks) 30. Charlie Gardiner (St. K)

To fill in some of the gaps: seems pretty likely that Yze's going to get a run so there's one spot. We're short one tall in the backline, does that mean Holland gets a run? Oh dear, as much as I like his work, against the Hawk's young talls, this could be disastrous. Last spot on the bench will probably go to someone capable of a midfield rotation role so who does that leave? Bode? CJ? Dear God, our depth is shocking this year!!

I honestly don't reckon we'll need to tank it this year, we're going to be shocking and will romp it in for the spoon. Naitanui all the way!!

Stick to footy Robbo, please!

This quote from the article tells me that Brock's got pretty severe mental shortcomings at this stage. The sheer fact that he considered doing a burnout to be a GOOD IDEA, quite frankly boggles my mind. How can defacing the premises at any training venue, let alone one which doesn't even belong to the club ever be considered a good idea? Even if it was the club's own training venue the act was still inexcusable. I really hope Brock is serious about pulling his head in, because he's certainly in our top 3 most important players on the list. I'm sure that Dean Bailey will help sort him out and I expect that he'll make giant strides forward this year, but geez I'm glad he's not captain...yet.

Me! This is disappointing on two fronts. Firstly Brock's immature bogan shenanigans, I expect better from the so-called future captain of the club. Secondly, the apologists on this forum that have jumped to the defense of Brock for this act of stupidity. How would you like it if someone came and did burn outs in your front drive way? The curator had every right to do what he did. I'd probably have done the same thing in his position. Lift your game Brock!!!

A few first impressions from those photos: Jack Grimes - this guy's living the dream playing for the team he supported growing up from the word go in his AFL career. He has a steely look of determination that says "superstar in the making" to me. This kid will be our Nathan Buckley I reckon. Cale Morton - all arms and legs at this stage but he's got some frame to build on you can just tell. If he does the right things in the gym this kid could turn into anything. I'm hoping he becomes a super mobile and strong CHF type (kind of like a cross between Reiwoldt and Carey). Stefan Martin - check out the size of those mits around the footy. Those over there in Melbourne who've watched him for Sandy are obviously better qualified to comment on this guy's prospects in the AFL (I live in Perth). He's got good size about him though. The future looks bright.

Good on you Craig. Thanks so much for your terrific work while with the Demons and best of luck for the future.

Clever

On the other side of the coin, how does a team like St. Kilda have more off field success than us? They've been about as consistent as us, save for those back to back prelim finals appearances a few years ago. One losing GF appearance in recent memory and no flag since the 60's. And they were as crap as us, if not crapper in the 80s too! What's going on?