Please Explain: Why Melbourne does not deserve a priority draft pick

MELBOURNE should not be rewarded for its own incompetence, writes Glenn McFarlane.

In the latest instalment of his Please Explain column, Glenn McFarlane asks the AFL why it is even thinking about handing Melbourne extra help.

Dear AFL Commission,

We know you've got your hands full at the moment, dealing with the sports supplement scandal and the racial vilification saga engulfing the game right now.

But this column would love to put a football-related matter to you right now.

The Melbourne Football Club clearly needs a priority pick at season's end, which is now at your discretion. But does it deserve one? Absolutely not.

Should it get one? Absolutely not.

As it sits right now, the Demons are the laughing stock of the AFL. They have won one game - against Greater Western Sydney - and don't look like winning another one any time soon.

It's going to be a long, cold and confronting winter for the club - one that coach Mark Neeld is not expected to see out as coach.

Off the field the Demons have been just as embarrassing as on the field, and it's fair to say that you, at the AFL, have taken a hand in trying to turn things around.

Your fingerprints were all over the decision to appoint Peter Jackson as Melbourne's interim chief executive, and so they should have been.

He is a troubleshooter capable of getting things done. And, boy, do things need to change at Melbourne.

Melbourne coach Mark Neeld and assistant Jade Rawlings at Patersons Stadium last weekend.

The financial black hole is very murky, but it would be worse without Jackson. One thing you must do is convince the former Essendon CEO to make it a permanent gig.

Whatever assistance you can give the Demons - within reason, of course - should be considered.

No one likes to see an ailing club, but when it comes to a football sense, you should consider the damage that Melbourne has done to itself with poor recruiting, development and strategy.

Even though many have been arguing that the Demons require an extra priority pick in November, surely you would see that it is not a great look to be handing one out to them.

Thankfully, priority picks are back at your discretion rather than a numerical figure of wins gained, and that's because of the tanking debate that raged on in football in recent years.

After an AFL investigation into alleged tanking, the Demons were fined $500,000. And two football officials - Chris Connolly and Dean Bailey (now at Adelaide) - were hit with suspensions for "acting in a manner prejudicial to the interest of the AFL."

For that reason alone, the Demons do not deserve a priority pick in 2013.

Then there's the club's horrible track record of drafting in recent times. Melbourne has had 12 top 20 picks (two of them priority selections) since its last finals appearance in 2006 - and four of them aren't even at the club any more.

Champion Data's AFL Prospectus 2013 labelled the club's drafting with early picks as an "epic failure". Hard to argue against that.

Lucas Cook gone. Cale Morton gone. Jordan Gysberts gone. Tom Scully walked out. And question marks on a few players still at the club.

How would the Western Bulldogs feel if the Demons got a priority pick and they don't? It just wouldn't be fair, considering the Dogs seem to have used their draft picks much more prudently.

How would other clubs feel if you reward a team with a priority pick basically because of a team's own incompetence? Pretty cheesed off and so they should be.

James Magner contemplates Melbourne's loss to Fremantle.

Melbourne's performance this season has seen it compared with Fitzroy in its final season. That's harsh on the original Lions.

Fitzroy received absolutely no help - repeat NO HELP - from the AFL in its dying years and that should forever stand as a moment of shame in the competition's history.

Over a number of years Fitzroy lost players of the calibre of Paul Roos, Gary Pert, Alastair Lynch, Richard Osborne, Matthew Armstrong, Michael Gale, Paul Broderick, among others, and got virtually nothing back for most of them. The AFL stood back and let it happen, without raising a finger to support them.

Then the league abandoned Fitzroy in its hour of need and conveniently shipped the club off to Brisbane for its own reasons as much as for keeping the Lions' spirit alive, in part.

The hurt still sits in the stomach of those who loved the Maroon and Blue, and plenty of football fans.

Give Dees, Dogs $2 million each: Eddie

There has long since been a changing of the guard - and a welcome change of philosophy - at AFL headquarters since those dark days. Thankfully, it must be said.

And we know you won't cut Melbourne adrift as your predecessors cut Fitzroy adrift.

But neither should you reward the Demons with a priority pick at season's end - the friendly fire that the club brought upon itself doesn't warrant it.

They need to claw their way back the hard way, instead of simply accepting another draft hand-out that, as we have seen, is no guarantee of success in itself.

Yours Sincerely,

Glenn McFarlane

PS

1. Richmond and Collingwood possess two of the strongest midfields in the competition, but you wouldn't have known that last week. Both the Tigers and the Magpies were smashed in the middle against the Bombers and the Swans respectively. They need to lift their work rate and be more accountable, starting this week, or run the risk of just being mid-table teams.

2. We love the way Jack Ziebell goes about things on and off the field. But there comes a time when he must alter his approach to the bump. Brent Harvey said yesterday that his teammate should not change the way he goes about it. We reckon he has to change - even slightly - because his suspensions are not helping him - or the side.