Tanking Continues To Be a Problem!
Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 6:24 pm
Jon Ralph
From: Herald Sun
November 05, 2012 12:00AM
Damian Drum
THE first AFL coach accused of "list management" to gain priority picks says tanking will continue until the AFL removes such a huge incentive for failure.
Former Fremantle coach Damian Drum was at the centre of the infamous "Hasleby Game" in 1999, in which Geelong kicked the last 11 goals against the Dockers in Round 22, handing them a priority pick.
Dockers players remarked about their positional changes, but Drum was adamant the club did not deliberately lose the game.
He said he had been given a reminder by club president Ross McLean before the game that he must coach to win.
Perth boy Hasleby became the No.2 draft pick, but the extra pick enabled the Dockers to recruit No.4 selection Matthew Pavlich, who became one of the greats.
Now the National Party MP for Bendigo, Drum said he had a clear conscience about the game, but he said the system was broken and must be repaired.
"What we have is a flawed system that encourages teams to lose," Drum told the Herald Sun.
"The AFL have to look at it very carefully. While they continue to leave these serious inducements for losing, the system will always have conjecture.
"The AFL will be battling these allegations in two years time and four years and six years, and there will be suspicion over the performance of bottom clubs for as long as they leave these rules in place."
The league has since made it almost impossible for clubs to win a pre-draft priority pick, but struggling clubs starved of high picks in the expansion era still have huge incentives to finish on the bottom.
Drum favours a lottery system that means every club in the bottom eight has a chance at the first pick, with weightings given to the worst sides.
In that much-scrutinised 1999 game Brodie Holland played on a half-back flank and Jess Sinclair back pocket - both for the first time - and commented on those moves post-match.
"Effectively you know what the stakes are from the result of that game," Drum said. "We were very, very clear we went out to win ... but the prize we got for not winning was Matthew Pavlich."
From: Herald Sun
November 05, 2012 12:00AM
Damian Drum
THE first AFL coach accused of "list management" to gain priority picks says tanking will continue until the AFL removes such a huge incentive for failure.
Former Fremantle coach Damian Drum was at the centre of the infamous "Hasleby Game" in 1999, in which Geelong kicked the last 11 goals against the Dockers in Round 22, handing them a priority pick.
Dockers players remarked about their positional changes, but Drum was adamant the club did not deliberately lose the game.
He said he had been given a reminder by club president Ross McLean before the game that he must coach to win.
Perth boy Hasleby became the No.2 draft pick, but the extra pick enabled the Dockers to recruit No.4 selection Matthew Pavlich, who became one of the greats.
Now the National Party MP for Bendigo, Drum said he had a clear conscience about the game, but he said the system was broken and must be repaired.
"What we have is a flawed system that encourages teams to lose," Drum told the Herald Sun.
"The AFL have to look at it very carefully. While they continue to leave these serious inducements for losing, the system will always have conjecture.
"The AFL will be battling these allegations in two years time and four years and six years, and there will be suspicion over the performance of bottom clubs for as long as they leave these rules in place."
The league has since made it almost impossible for clubs to win a pre-draft priority pick, but struggling clubs starved of high picks in the expansion era still have huge incentives to finish on the bottom.
Drum favours a lottery system that means every club in the bottom eight has a chance at the first pick, with weightings given to the worst sides.
In that much-scrutinised 1999 game Brodie Holland played on a half-back flank and Jess Sinclair back pocket - both for the first time - and commented on those moves post-match.
"Effectively you know what the stakes are from the result of that game," Drum said. "We were very, very clear we went out to win ... but the prize we got for not winning was Matthew Pavlich."
