Should "Top End Tanking" Be Banned? | Thebigtip

And so a dilemma arises. You know you have sewn up top spot on the ladder, you have the finals series ahead of you, and you do not want your best players injured. Oh, and you are also playing your main challenger for the 2011 AFL Premiership in the final round. What is a club to do?

For the Collingwood Football Club, this was the situation facing them against the Geelong Cats. Although they had played (on paper) a very strong line-up, and started well enough to jump out of the blocks to a 19-point lead early on, they were subject to a 115-point turnaround and lost by 96 points. Look closely at Michael Malthouse's body language during the three quarter time break, where he did not seem to worry too much about the Magpies' poor performance and knew that there was nothing to play for, having sewn up the McClelland Trophy the previous week. In other words, they were "top end tanking", meaning that they had practically thrown their match with nothing to play for.

Where's the AFL investigation?

We have seen the despair of watching clubs such as Carlton, Melbourne and Richmond in recent years deliberately throw - or "tank" as is the common term - games in order to succeed in "winning" draft picks. Recent investigations of these three clubs deemed that they had not tanked - although fans of the 17 AFL clubs could quite clearly see what the AFL could not throughout their investigations. So if a club that deliberately lose games in order to succeed in winning draft picks warrants investigations from the AFL, why does a club, on or near the top of the ladder, that deliberately lose a game or two in order to prevent players getting injured, or perhaps to even misle potential opponents in the finals, not subject to investigation?

After all, we have seen Collingwood's perceived 'effort' against the Cats, and Hawthorn resting eight of their key players leading up to their game against the Gold Coast Suns. With both those clubs playing finals football, both clubs will not receive an investigation, quite obviously.

But why? After all, the resting of key players and putting in no effort when there is nothing to gain or lose impacts on a lot of key off-field goings-on in the AFL - for example, betting on winning margins, having a punt on the first goalkicker and most importantly, tipping competitions, where many of those tipping competitions are going down to the wire given it is the final round of the season. When the money of the common AFL fan is being spent on a team that puts in no effort or rests key players for the finals, there has to be major concerns here.

Witness other clubs over the years resting players and putting in little effort in the final round of the season or just before the end. Fremantle last year, in round 21 having sewn up a finals spot, rested almost a dozen players for their game against Hawthorn, and subsequently lost by 116 points, ending the finals chances of Hawthorn's nearest challenger, North Melbourne, in the process (North missed out, in the end, by percentage). Those dozen players returned the week after to play the Blues, and won by six points. Then then performed an incredible recovery in the elimination final against the Hawks, winning comfortably and eliminating the Hawks from the finals race in the process.

Another example, West Coast in 1991 - having sewn up the minor premiership, and leading by a comfortable margin against last placed Fitzroy in round 24, the second half ended up being a debacle for the Eagles, losing to the Roys by 10 points, enabling them to miss out on the wooden spoon. The loss of form in the second half didn't help either - they then lost to the Hawks at Subiaco in the qualifying final the next week.

So back to Collingwood. Last night, to the casual AFL outsider, seemed to be a disaster for Collingwood, but within the club, to have not had a key injury to players such as Swan, Pendlebury and co will have pleased them. Despite scares from Chris Tarrant and Travis Cloke, both will probably play in their opening final against the Eagles next week. The same situation will apply to Hawthorn resting their players from their Gold Coast clash - all of their key players will be fresh for their crunch game against Geelong next week.

However, one would assume those who put their hard earned on a Collingwood win wouldn't be very happy with what they were doing against the Cats. Near the bottom or up the top, the AFL has to do something about clubs that do not put any or little effort into any game. If the AFL is as serious about outlawing tanking as they are about outlawing other foibles such as gambling in football or the head high bump, they must launch investigations into questionable efforts from teams near the top come late-August. It is as much a worry as it is watching teams near the bottom play for all-important draft picks.