Crawf advocates tanking to fix swans woes....

[2005]

Why?

Because its so perfectly put .
Its what the football fraternity can read and see from down here .

Most in Sydney dont give a toss about AFL and the Swans and they never will

4 years ago we won a flag , you would never know up there.
One major factor about the TANKING thing is that other sides can slide for a year and it doesnt hurt, membership and crowds are still there .

Wont happen in Sydney

[top40]

Tanking is very risky, noting the Sydney market.

[Melbournehammer]

I'm just not so sure about this. Hawthorn have demonstrated (as richmond do whwenever they look like they can get going) that once a winning culture commences fans come out of the woodwork.

Sydney has as strong a bandwagon culture as anyone else. Probably more so. I remember 1996 like it was yesterday and people from all over sydney were suddenly talking about the swans and some of the crowds in 1996/1997 were amazing. I was living in sydney when tommy hafey had the swans going and crowds and interest were then in droves. And I also remember the softness of the crowds 1991-1993.

If (and this is the if with tanking generally) we were to be a genuine challenger in 3 seasons and took our medicine for two i suspect you will see crowds and members back in droves.

I suspect Roos is actually right when he says the bigger issue is not for the club so much as for the afl. i think the melbourne membership is a fairly solid 5000. I'm not sure that the swans sydney membership will (other decisions of marketing departments and games locations aside) go that much lower - i guess it would be interesting to consider what is the "core" sydney membership....but assuming it is around the 20,000 mark is that so much lower than what is currently there ?

I still think the issue is for the AFL. Can you put in a second club when the primary club is tanking and languishing ? Can you afford to have the biggest media market with a poor product ? Can you afford to lose 2-4 years of juniors who might come into the game ?

And this is the reason why tanking is not really a possibility for the swans - not so much for the club as such (if and i repeat this is the big if - you can go from nowhere to flag contender in three seasons) but for the league.

I guess as a final point - hawthorn is the poster boy for tanking - but i remember them 2001-2002 and they had some seriously good players that other clubs were willing to trade for (jonathon hay was a seriously good player for hawthorn...jade rawlings had some breakout seaons etc etc). What assets do we have that are really in play for trades ? That being the case one high draft per annum aint gonna cut it.

[BSA5]

I didn't mention tanking. I said dropping was natural and needed, and part of that is cycling through the players to gradually replace the older players with the younger ones.

I didn't say we did. I said a team needs to drop down the ladder, exactly as Adelaide did as you acknowledge.

Given the context you said it in, it seemed to me that you thought dropping down the ladder without trying to stay competitive was important. What I'm talking about is getting the absolute most of the list at any given point. As the list ages, you will drop, but that doesn't mean you have to abandon all hope and wait for the inevitable top 5 picks. You can stay within finals contention (as we currently are now) and rebuild at the same time. There's no need to drop any further than we are now. It may happen anyway, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to resist it. Finals experience is invaluable for kids.

[johnno]

A lot of people in the football world think that the Hawthorn method is the way to go, spend some time down the bottom, recruit youngsters, keep those same youngsters on the list and in 3-4 years have a crack at a premiership. This seemed like the best thing to do after the 2008 grand final. My question to people here and to all the so called 'footy experts' in the media who have been saying that since september until about rounds 5-6 of this year is.....Considering how the Hawks are going right this very second, and it looks very likely that they are going to miss the 8 this year, can you still say that this is the correct way for clubs to go? Doesn't look like it now does it?


Another thing, I honestly believe that over the years, when coach's come out in the media and say things like, 'we are in a rebuilding phase', this is just another way of saying 'we're @@@@'. The swans havn't been too bad this year, I honestly believe the only games where we were comprehensively beaten were against the Lions and against the cats (I wont put in the bulldogs game because that was a freak occurance having them put 13 goals in row against us, no one mentions that we actually outscored them by 40 point in the second half). We are as good as the sides sitting in 4th place, the top 3 are runaway leaders, with a bit of luck we should sneak into the 8.

[Mr Magoo]

I reckon if the AFL changes the rules on free agency , the "bottoming out to get good players" theory will go right out the window.

It seems that it is a solution that only exists in AFL due to the drafts and the trade periods being so heavily weighted to underperformance. Rugby league, union and soccer all exist on a mixture of junior development and mature age recruitment. While I think the rugby league model is no poster boy as far as player recruitment , clubs should be aware that if free agency is bought in , the game will definitely head that way . I wonder then if everyone will be so keen on bottoming out when you can pick up proven players for the right money without having to worry about giving away draft picks during the farce that is currently the trade period.

I like the way Brisbane have gone about things. They managed to maintain a core of their previous premiership players to lead the next generation without totally bottoming out (although they have dropped down for a couple of years now ). This to me is the best model for bottoming out as when they start to rise again you have a mix of both experienced and young players without losing the original culture.

[Number 43]

I'm proud of the way the swans have refused to tank as other clubs have. As someone mentioned earlier in the thread...look what happened when we had top picks like Rocca and Grant.....you need a blend of experience and youth and the aim should be to make the finals every year. You've gotta be in it to win it as they say...