I have to agree...

pick 1- 9th position on the ladder
pick 2 - 10th
pick 3 - 11th
pick 4 - 16th
pick 5 - 15h
pick 6 - 14th
pick 7 - 13th
pick 8 - 12th
pick 9 - 8th
pick 10 - 7th
pick 11 - 6th
pick 12 - 5th
pick 13 - 4th
pick 14 - 3rd
pick 15 - 2nd
pick 16 - 1st

Would be great to see the Dogs get Marc Murphy and for us to get pick 8.
If you are going to have a lottery system then it needs to be split into 2 parts for the bottom 8 or weighted for wins.

Example 16 to 13th are put into a lottery for pick 1 to 4. Or perhaps 16th team given more weight than 13th team in the lottery.
Repeated for 12th to 9th. Finalists are done by order. Who would tank a final?

Or perhaps do it by wins. Less than 7 wins gets in a lottery. The rest who win 8 agmes or more but dont make the finals are put into another lottery.
I could see some tanking debate going on with this one though.

16th 40% of getting pick 1
15th 30% of pick 1
14th 20% of pick 1
13th 10% of pick 1

pick 1 to 4 determined by a lottery and only these 4 clubs.

12th 40% of getting pick 5
11th 30th of pick 5
10th 20% of pick 5
9th 10% of pick 5

pick 5 to 8 determioned by a lottery and only these 4 clubs.

A few ideas there.

I'm all for the picks coming in from Pick 9, 10, 11 etc but I think we need to be aware of the real effects of having a two year rule or similar.

Below is the number of wins for each team that's been in PP territory at some point over the last 10 years:

Carlton

1996: 15
1997: 10
1998: 9
1999: 12
2000: 16
2001: 13
2002: 3
2003: 4
2004: 10
2005: 4.5

Collingwood

1996: 9
1997: 10
1998: 7
1999: 4
2000: 7
2001: 11
2002: 13
2003: 15
2004: 8
2005: 5


Hawthorn

1996: 11
1997: 8
1998: 8
1999: 10.5
2000: 12
2001: 13
2002: 11
2003: 12
2004: 4
2005: 5


Richmond

1996: 11
1997: 10
1998: 12
1999: 9
2000: 11
2001: 15
2002: 7
2003: 7
2004: 4
2005: 10

Bulldogs

1996: 5.5
1997: 14
1998: 15
1999: 15.5
2000: 12
2001: 10
2002: 9.5
2003: 3
2004: 5
2005: 11

St. Kilda

1996: 10
1997: 15
1998: 13
1999: 10
2000: 2.5
2001: 4
2002: 5.5
2003: 11
2004: 16
2005: 14


Fremantle

1996: 7
1997: 10
1998: 7
1999: 5
2000: 8
2001: 2
2002: 9
2003: 14
2004: 11
2005: 11


West Coast

1996: 15
1997: 13
1998: 12
1999: 12
2000: 7
2001: 5
2002: 11
2003: 12
2004: 13
2005: 17

Melbourne

1996: 7
1997: 4
1998: 14
1999: 6
2000: 14
2001: 10
2002: 12
2003: 5
2004: 14
2005: 12

Brisbane

1996: 15.5
1997: 10.5
1998: 5.5
1999: 16
2000: 12
2001: 17
2002: 14
2003: 14
2004: 16
2005: 10


Years in bold are years when a club would qualify for a Priority pick using the 2 years and 12 games or less model.

How does this stack up?

For the sake of the comparison I'll use the current system of 5 wins or less for the whole of the last 10 years even though it hasn't been used for the entire period.

Carlton - Would have one less Priority pick. Our 10 wins in 2004 would have cost us Marc Murphy.

Collingwood - A big winner (never thought I'd say that). Would have picked up a PP in 1999 and 2000. A club already on the rise with seven wins gets another boost.

Hawthorn - Loser. Wouldn't have qualified for a pick last year but would have this year. Bye bye one of Roughead or Franklin.

Richmond - No change. Would have got a pick in 2004 anyway although considering they used it to trade for Kane Johnson they probably deserve to have the next one witheld.

Bulldogs - Loser. Get to keep Griffin from 2004 but say goodbye to Adam Cooney who misses going to the Dogs by half a game.

St. Kilda - Under the 5 wins or less system the Saints qualified in 2000, 2001 and 2002. Under the new system they'd only get PPs in 2001 and 2002. Considering their worst year was in 2000 with 2.5 wins this seems to be a bit of an anomaly in the 2 year system.

Fremantle - Bigger winner. 2 PPs under the old system becomes 3 - the last of which in 2002 would have been in a year when they were on the rise and picked up 9 wins. Big problem here.

West Coast - No change - Still get Chris Judd.

Melbourne - Keep their pick from 97 but lose their pick from 2003 which seems fair considering they had 12 wins in 2002 and 14 in 2004.

Brisbane - Wouldn't qualify for either system for their 1998 pick of Des Headland when they had 5.5 wins. Fair enough too.


There are obviously problems here.

The biggest one is that whatever system you put up there are bound to be results that sit uncomfortably with many of us.

Perhaps we could spread it over three years and raise the game limit to 20 but I can't be stuffed working that out and it doesn't help a club who plummets to the bottom for three years which is too long.

I'm still in favour of the PP and I'm in favour of it being implemented from pick 9 down but the two year rule would need to be adapted to counter a situation where a club went 11, 1, 11 over three years and picked up two picks, one of which would occur in a year the could conceivably be playing finals. A maximum number of games in any one qualifying year would fix this.

There's also the problem of teams picking up a player when they're on the rise rather than when they actually need it such as Collingwood who would have qualified for an additional pick in 2000 when they'd just had 75% more wins than the previous year.

I'm yet to see a perfect system but I think it's likely that if there is a new system aimed at fixing irregularities in the PP world then it may need to be fairly complex and involve a series of clauses rather than simply being a flat rule.

Perhaps something like this.

A team will qualify for a Priority pick if it has less than:

4 wins in 1 year
11 wins over 2 years
20 wins over 3 years

That way a club who has a really bad year will still qualify in its first year but it also provides the possibility for a club is stuck around 12th-14th to pick one up after 2-3 seasons.

This suggestion's just off the top of my head and obviously needs further development but it may be fairer in the end.

If you split the bottom 8 you re-introduce the incentive to tank. Do I finish 12th or 13th? top four pick or pick 5-8.
I believe the only line in the sand can be in the 8 or out, sides will never deliberately miss finals, they loose to much in terms of membership etc.

_________________
The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

Ronald Reagan