Thought of the week

Actually it is three thoughts really.

First of all. I am sick to death of the whole Tanking issue! Get over it people! People are going to argue with me til they're black and blue but I am so sure that Melbourne did not tank on the weekend! I personally think they are at the moment naturally bad! Sorry Melbourne fans but they are! There is a big difference between a natural bad performance and tanking. The way that Melbourne played on the weekend was not bad (maybe from Richmond yes!) and that wasn't the problem, but the couple of mistakes that was hi lighted meant that of course they had to be tanking. If that's the case then everyone must be tanking! Please people come on!

Second of all. I would like to hi light a couple of lucky results. With regards to the Geelong and Adelaide game, that was a good tight contest and maybe the right result happened. But there was a couple of games that I would have to say were a bit dodgy. The Sydney and St Kilda game was a fantastic game and I did mention that I will have to see the footage regarding Leigh Montagna. Well I did see it and I would have to agree with others that St Kilda were lucky not to get a free kick against them. Would it in fact influence the game? Maybe maybe not but it would have given Sydney a chance to win the game, but most likely it would have been a drawn game and therefore the Saints would still be undefeated but wouldn't have won all the games like they have now. To me at least a free kick should have been paid and who knows what the rest of the game would have done, to me the Saints were lucky really. The Second game was the game that is in question is the Melbourne and Richmond game. With four seconds to go the ball wasn't even kicked to Jordan McMahon and to me the ball was in the air when the siren went. The umpire paid it and well the rest was history. Really Melbourne should have won, and what about if they had? All I can say is that we won't be talking about the whole tanking issue won't we?!

Just getting onto the tanking issue. To me there is a way in which to stamp this out, stop the priority pick rule as it stands. The AFL need to look at a different system in order to ensure that tanking doesn't become an issue. To me you need to reward teams that win, and I'm not talking about up the top of the ladder but you need to encourage teams on the bottom of the ladder to win. This is what I think:
1. You can put in a draft like the one in the NBA. The bottom teams go into a lottery after the bottom three teams get picks 1,2, and 3. The rest of the picks are determined by a lottery. I have toyed with this idea while it's ok, it would need a bit of work for it to be successfull.
2. Scrap Priority picks in general and whatever order you finish on the ladder determines your draft picks, much more fair way of doing things.
3. If there are going to be priority picks make it to reward teams. For one thing if a team finishes last, second and third last then they have got to win more games the next year than the previous year (regardless of their position) to get a priority pick. Yes this will have it's downfall especially if teams deliberately have a bad year then go all out the following year. To me that will work only if teams are down towards the bottom end of the ladder for more than one year in a row. To me you need to reward winning not losing.

What do you think? Email me carefactor0@live.com.au.

Catch ya!