AFL confident clubs won’t try to play for draft picks this year
JON RALPH, Herald Sun
July 25, 2017 8:00pm
Subscriber only
THE AFL believes tanking is a non-issue this year and has no plans to reinforce its policy with clubs at Wednesday’s meeting of football bosses.
Brisbane and North Melbourne are separated by only percentage and face off in Round 23 in what could be the wooden spoon battle.
But Lions coach Chris Fagan says tanking no longer occurs and the Roos are furious about insinuations they didn’t pick a team to win against Essendon.
Only four years ago Melbourne was fined $5000 and had officials banned after the league investigated tactics and selection in three 2009 games.
But acting football boss Andrew Dillon said the league had no issues with the Kangaroos dropping Todd Goldstein and managing sore captain Jack Ziebell.
It is understood the league believes clubs are aware of their obligations, confident they want to win every game.
The league will discuss a range of issues with football bosses including:
* Umpiring, with some coaches upset about the inconsistent interpretation of holding the ball.
* Welfare, with the AFL, player union and clubs to put in place a joint committee governing all welfare issues including education and mental health as part of the new CBA agreement.
* The salary cap and total player payments, with salary cap boss Ken Wood to brief clubs on the 20 per cent pay rise.
* AFLX, with the league still keen to introduce several games of the abbreviated concept during the post-Round 23 bye.
* The 2018 JLT series format, with many clubs only wanting two warm-up games leading into the AFL season.
The laws of the game committee will meet separately this week, with a cut in interchange for 2018 unlikely despite an annual review of rules post-season.
If North Melbourne happened to finish with the No.1 overall pick it would help their bid to secure at least one rival star like GWS mid Josh Kelly.
The Lions will play their way out of a chance at winning a priority pick with late wins but Fagan is desperate to keep winning.
“I don’t believe in it. You have got to play as hard as you can for the full 23 rounds and finish as hard as you can on the ladder,’’ he told SEN Radio.
“It’s what you need to do to develop your club properly and you should never get into the habit of maybe not trying as hard as you can to get a better draft pick.
“I am pretty sure not much of that happens any more. There is always a lot of talk about that at this time of the year, it’s when it starts to happen if it’s going to.
“Generally speaking maybe since the Melbourne situation a few years ago the clubs would be pretty reluctant to go down that path.”
Dillon said the AFL had no concerns about clubs positioning themselves for better draft picks.
“I was at the Essendon-North Melbourne game and knew Robbie Tarrant had pulled out and he did have a bad back,” he said.
“It’s not something that has come across my desk.”
Todd Goldstein performed strongly in the VFL in torrid conditions against Ty Vickery and Marc Pittonet and could be recalled to play against Melbourne’s Max Gawn.