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The AFL made an almighty mistake last year. Pick 3 was obviously a priority pick in disguise because it was simply an unpalatable PR situation giving us one outright, but nudging up our compensation for Frawley allowed them to help us in stealth. So what's the problem? They've now cornered themselves into a situation where lowly clubs are better off pushing out their free agents and rorting the compensation because the threshold of band 1 now has a lowly precedent. $500k will be peanuts for clubs in a few years. All and sundry now discuss compensation for Brisbane and Carlton as if pick 2 and 4 are a fait accompli. Disastrously for the AFL, they desperately need Brisbane to get the kid who Carlton will now take with pick 2 compo if, as expected, they push out Kreuzer (Carlton withdrew their contract to Kreuzer upon hearing what money other clubs are offering him, realising the likelihood of getting pick 2). So once again, the AFL are caught with their pants down, and their inability to be transparent in their decision making has created yet another rort for clubs to legally exploit; if clubs sense a free agent is leaving, it now benefits teams to sink on the ladder for a year and secure two high draft picks before climbing up again. This is worse than the old priority pick rules (two seasons at the bottom) which no modern club would willingly do just to get one extra first rounder. The problem is, while pick 3 was overs for Frawley, their only alternative was a wholly inadequate end-of-first rounder for a club in dire need of help. But surely we're past the point of farce if Carlton can get pick 2 for Kreuzer and Brisbane can get pick 4 for Leuenberger. The most pathetic irony of the situation though? Carlton tanked to get Kreuzer and are now rorting the system once again to get compensation for his departure. Another absolute farce of a situation created by the geniuses at AFL House who should've been transparent in the first place about our compensation for Frawley. Surely the most logical solution here is to limit band 1 compo to begin after pick 10, so the first pick after the year's non-finalists. With these 10 teams all striving to get up the ladder, and the negative ripple affect that compensation has inside the precious top 10 picks, it's simply too detrimental on the numerous struggling clubs in desperate need of high-end talent. The AFL were forced to change the PP rules because teams found out how to exploit it; well, it hasn't taken them long to discover how to exploit this. The rewards for losing are once again becoming far greater than the rewards for winning.