As far as the Carlton game and the Higgins goal goes, what do people want?
Do some people want Higgins to have questioned himself at that split second moment, to have gone against every bit of instinct and all footy education and training and deliberately tried not to score a goal? Do we want players prepared to tank a game, take a dive for some theoretical advantage in the long term? Do we want coaches and footy directors prepared to do what Melbourne did not that long ago?
Yes, it's inconvenient that it probably cost us a slightly better midfielder in the draft.
But think of what tanking a game would cost us culturally. Some teams have the luxury of playing with their culture; we don't. Andrew Bassat said something at the BnF along the lines of:
"We have everything against us so if anything less than our absolute best is going to take us nowhere"
We will draft who we draft and if we don't get the absolute cream, so be it. We cannot EVER be a club that picks and chooses when to give it everything - that is not hyperbole, that is just a fact.