No light at end of tunnel for inept Richmond JAKE NIALL
May 13, 2010 Draft concessions may be the only way to get the Tigers back on track.THERE is zero chance that the AFL commission will change the order of the draft, this year or next, to give Richmond the kind of picks that such an inept team deserves.
Those draft picks that have been allocated to the Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney - selections 1-3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 in the 2010 and 2011 drafts - are set in concrete. They are part of the new clubs' licensing agreement to enter the competition. These picks are part of their DNA.
So, the Tigers will get pick No. 4 - which is really equivalent to pick No. 6 or 7 due to the 17-year-olds already taken - even if they don't win a game, and then a couple of crappy picks in the twenties.
That Richmond is getting shafted in the next two national drafts is well known - the Tiger fans are well aware of it, though oddly, many of them are so conditioned to doom and defeat, they have accepted this travesty. They didn't get pick No. 1 in 2007 when they finished bottom, either (it went to Carlton).
What few of them would know, however, is that the Tigers also are getting rough justice in the pre-season draft for uncontracted players, in both 2010 and 2011.
The Tigers are the worst team of recent times, in a competition that is supposedly built on competitive balance, and yet they will not receive anything like the normal rewards for incompetence. There's no Scully or Trengove on the immediate horizon.
In addition to early national draft picks, the bottom team is normally entitled to have first crack at any out-of-contract player in the pre-season draft and can use the PSD to trade on favourable terms.
The poor Tigers, though, have missed the uncontracted boat, too, this year. Gold Coast is in the boat. They're in the water.
The Gold Coast has the right to sign one uncontracted player from each of the 16 clubs this year. But it will not sign up anything like that number. The club has indicated that it doesn't want more than eight or nine out-of-contract players from other clubs.
The new team, however, has an additional safety net that would allow it to get more uncontracted players should it want them, or in the event that a gun player suddenly becomes available (unable to come to terms with club etc).
If the Gold Coast signs eight players, it could, theoretically, then fill its quota of 16 by taking eight players consecutively in the PSD. In practice, this means it can pick as many uncontracted players as it desires, and it can grab anyone who falls out of the tree. It also makes it extremely difficult for Richmond, as the bottom team, to snare a decent out-of-contract player via that traditional PSD path. The same system applies to GWS in 2011.
Since this column raised the issue of Richmond's raw deal and argued that it should receive some compensation for being collateral damage for expansion, debate has raged about whether the Tigers should get some respite. ''Let them suffer'' has been the response of many vitriolic opposition fans, who have pointed out - correctly - that Richmond's woes are entirely of its own making.
Andrew Demetriou has expressed concern about the Tigers' plight, but last week told The Age it was ''unlikely'' that they would receive some kind of compensation.
Demetriou, at least, hasn't been categoric. By the middle of next year, if the Tigers remain mired at the bottom, after a 1-21 season with a percentage of 50, then the commission, surely, would give consideration to the Richmond question.
The Tigers, whose chief executive Brendon Gale has talked down the idea of seeking draft help, will be better placed to make a case next year, when a priority pick may be imminent. It cannot get a No. 1-3 draft pick, but there is no reason why it should not receive the right to the best 16 or 17-year-old, or be allowed to ''bank'' its priority pick and use it 12 months later when the draft is normalised, as clubs can when they lose uncontracted players to Gold Coast.
Richmond, in any case, wouldn't be asking or getting anything ''special''. What it ought to request is the right to be treated like all the other hopeless bottom teams.
The argument that the Tigers dug their own grave with past recruiting blunders is irrelevant. The AFL's system doesn't take into account what a club has done.
Every team that bottoms out has either stuffed up badly, or tanked. Richmond, at least, hasn't done the latter.
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/no-light-at-end-of-tunnel-for-inept-richmond-20100512-uy1t.html
