Tanking a Blight on AFL

Tanking is the worst aspect of modern footy. I cannot believe that the league office thinks that this does not exist.

Today Richmond won a terrible game that neither team wanted to win with a kick after the siren. When the kick from McMahon, who managed to kick straight for the first time for the day, went through I was not dancing in delight as my team toughed it out for a close win. No I held my head in my hands as I contemplated our plumeting chances of getting a top draft pick.

I look around the ground and I see Melbourne supporters high fiving as they keep alive their chance at getting the number 1 pick.

Celebrating losing is not how this game was meant to be played. Aussie rules is meant to be tough game were the combatants have to prove they deserve to be there every time they take the field. Instead we a left with the farce of a contest that we saw at the 'G today.

It's time for the AFL to get off their hands and actually fix the problem. Start with getting rid of the 1st round priority pick. The worst team in the comp already gets the first pick of the best youngsters, who could resist the temptation in ensuring that they get themselves the best two.

The priorty pick system was required when the draft was a crap shoot in it's first 15 years in existence. However that time is passed, and now the top 20 picks are as valuable as gold and the first pick in the draft is almost assured of being a 100 game player.

Retaining the 2nd round priority pick could be argued for, however I would actually make teams eligible for a 2nd round priorty pick based on a number of criteria:

• winning games over a season - ie. still need to win less than 4.5 games
• length of time since last finals appearance - not within the last 3 years
• Attendance - ranking in average attendance for league - maybe only if in bottom half
  

This would a least reduce the attractiveness of loosing on purpose as well as removing the ability to immediately go from playing for a premiership and then tanking to bring on the next great era (West Coast I'm looking at you).

Now onto that win, I like what is forming at Richmond with the young team that is being played. I cannot begrudge a win that is won with all of our outstanding youngsters playing. But the game today was low skill and did not advertise Jade's capabilities as a coach for the future. I'll write more on the game itself tomorrow.

A New Blog Begins

Well I had no plan to start a blog and I'm not sure what I will be writing about yet but I'm sure it will be entertaining.... well maybe.

A bit about myself and what I'll probably be covering, My name is Mark and I'm a 35 year old IT professional from Melbourne, Australia. I'm passionate about sports (Aussie rules, cricket, MMA/Boxing and american sports), role playing games and various other table top games and computer games. Not necessarily in the order presented.

I am married, and I have a 16 year old son who is currently training to be a tradesman and generally have a wonderful life.

Why the title of "Closed Pistachio Stymies Fatso"? Well I needed a title for my blog and the comics guy from the simpsons has always fascinated me. But not because he could well be the best caricature written on geek culture. But because, despite his intelligence he gets flumoxed by the simple. I'm kinda like that, and it makes me chuckle to think of it.

I fully intend to talk about my hobbies and interests and I hope that whoever happens by will be entertained, I don't think I'll be updating every day, but you never know what can happen.