In what way does the draft keep the competition even?

[23.21.159]

I don't doubt that it does. To have seen the Lions, Swans and Cats win flags proves that to any of us that were raised in the 70s and 80s.

But I'm starting to think that on a game by game basis, it's making it worse. I'm not saying WCE are tanking, but it's obvious they are not trying to win as much as they might. Can you imagine the odds you could have got on Richmond winning this game at the start of the season?

I don't have any stats to back this up, but it seems to me that while results on a season-by-season basis are evened out, we are getting more and more very one-sided games, caused mostly by teams out of the race for the finals who are beginning to realise they have more to gain at that point by losing.

When I was a kid in the 70s, we would often go to Richmond games and sometimes I would wonder why the Fitzroys, Footscrays and St. Kildas of this world even bothered to turn up - but they did and they were 100% trying to win and sometimes they did pull off the odd surpise.

I'm not trying to devalue our win yesterday ... you can only beat who you're playing and the Tiges did that today in much better fashion than we might have expected. But surely the Weagles were not 100% fair dinkum.

Is the draft to blame for this? Discuss.

 

[Juffaricho]

Absolutely it makes a difference but you can't change it. Many people are calling for the AFL draft to be modeled on the NBA and NHL lottery styles but it doesn't make a bit of difference in terms of teams trying to win. In both these leagues the lower teams still send their players out for early operations, play their youth and the media continues to talk about teams dropping games to "improve their odds" of getting a high draft pick ast opposed to saying they are losing to get the number 1 draft pick. It's just semantics. At the end of the day the only time it makes a masssive difference to have the #1 draft pick is when you get a once in a generation player like a LeBron James in the NBA or Sidney Crosby in the NHL. If you had the No. 1 pick like Cleveland and Pittsburg did in the above cases your franchise was set for an immediate turnaround. In AFL you cannot predict that a player will be a generation type player at such a young age due to the variables in the AFL game. You just hope to get a solid AFL player if you get a top 20 pick, a really good player if you get a top 5 pick and the rest is a bonus. Despite the realities of the situation as mentioned I believe it should be changed to the lottery style. It is downright irresponsible by the sports governing body to have a rule that gives 1st choce to a "potential" superstar being decided by the end of season results of 22 games in an draw that the body can not make even. It should be a lottery pick but don't expect the suggestions of tanking to go away. They will be there forever until the day there is no advantage at all by finishing lower on the ladder than someone higher and let's be honest, that is never going to happen. The best setup by far is what the majority of soccer leagues have with the relegation rule. It is fantastic to be watching games that decide both the Premiership winner and who is getting relegated at the end of the season. And sometimes it is even in the same game!

 

[TOT70]

Tanking is the biggest problem affecting the AFL, bar nothing.

It is clear that Port Adelaide have no intention of winning another game, they will lose their Priority Pick if they do. WC, Freo and Melb are all set to finish bottom three and they will form an orderly queue to select a young gun each.

Why would they want to win games at this stage of the year? What do they care about the integrity of the competition? They have sold all their memberships for the year so it doesn't matter if fans give up and stop attending.

Good on Essendon and Richmond for eschewing tanking and injecting some interest into what would otherwise be a boring and very orderly finish to the year. Unfortunately, with the way the rules are, they will both pay for it.

 

[Leysy Days]

Dont complain peeps, make a buck.

Port & West Coast were both clear favs this week. :fing32

 

[Streak]

The draft is not the beast that the AFL pretends it is, but IMO the alternatives are far worse, unless as Juffa says, we have some sort of severe penalty for finishing last. However relegation doesn't really work either, because the club that gets relegated will struggle to resign any decent player out of contract (who wants to play at a lower level) and will surely struggle to attract junior talent for the next season. If that team, or any other, got promoted, they would be at a severe disadvantage.

The draft isn't even, and gives an incentive for teams to lose, but the alternative is either trying to set zones for clubs as before (and that was never fair), or rich clubs like Collingwood, Adelaide and the Eagles having the resources to potential grab the best talent year after year.