didnt help that they were more interested in losing games to gain early draft picks rather than teaching the kids they had how to play football in a way that will win you games.
Possibly but the bigger issue is most definitely in the lack of development in the draftees you tanked to get into the club in the first place.
So I'll ask the obvious question - how do you develop kids when you're trying to lose?
Collingwood and hawthorn won the flag after tanking
So there goes your theory
Nope. Hawthorn were just plain crap and genuinely lost all those games. The jury is out on Collingwood who might have thrown a game or 2 at the end of '04 but if you look at the players from their 2003 GF team who were still on their list in '04 and '05 they had a heap of injuries and many of their better players missed 6, 8, 10 games or more in '04 and '05. And no player is going to deliberately miss games for the good of a team just so it can tank, for monetary reasons before anything else! They were just as crap as Hawthorn but had much more ability and experience available that made their turnaround much quicker when they got their good players back on the field then had a couple of good kids from the draft to add to that. Completely different scenario to Melbourne who purposely tanked numerous games over several seasons to try and get a good group of youngsters but found that kids don't learn how to play football (nor appreciate it) by tanking.
