Deliberately setting out to lose is match fixing - you cant fix a match by trying to win.
If you talk about playing kids or even trying players in different positions as part of development, then yes i agree that is different. It's not tanking though. Tanking to me is deliberatlety setting out to loose and that is match fixing.To blatently try players in a different positions at the expense of winning a game you are in a position to do so is match fixing, or tanking.
This is what the coaching staff at Melbourne did last year. They wanted to loose. That is match fixing and that is cheating.
Were st kilda tanking last year when they rested a heap of senior players last year? No they weren't. The fact that they won says that, but would people still give the same answer if they had lost ? They had no legitimate reason to deliberately lose. They were simply resting players with an eye on the bigger picture and were prepared to accept the possible consequences ie losing one game, but they did not set out to lose that game (if they did they failed
)
As for the players celebrating a win. If there is something wrong with that, then the whole thing if stuffed. You show me a player that does not want to win every game they play and that's one player I don't want in the side I follow.
Having played in sides that struggle to win a game I know the elation you feel when you finally do.
Surely our poor drafting/development is a bigger problem than the players celebrating winning a game that some people were wanting us to loose.
Personally, I'd be happy to see the priority picks scrapped or exchanged for something like an extra few spots on the list for a year or two, because the whole issue of tanking, match fixing or whatever you want to call deliberately losing, is a blight on the game.
