North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson has lit the fuse for an explosive conflict with Gold Coast after slamming the AFL’s help packages to the enlargement membership.
The Kangaroos will declare a third-straight picket spoon – the primary membership to realize the undesirable feat since Sydney from 1992-94 – in the event that they don’t upset the Suns in Hobart on Saturday.
Clarkson swatted away speak of the AFL introducing a lottery system for the draft as an alternative of the bottom-placed crew routinely being awarded the No.1 decide.
West Coast appeared destined to gather simply the second picket spoon within the membership’s proud’s historical past after sitting in 18th and final till recording a well-known upset of the Western Bulldogs final Sunday.
The beautiful outcome put North again on the underside, with the Kangaroos having received simply 11 of 83 video games for the reason that begin of the 2020 season.
“The bottom line is North Melbourne are where they are because they’ve been the most poorly performed team in the competition for the last four years,” Clarkson mentioned on Thursday.
“There’d be just as many critics to say the lottery system isn’t fair either.
“The league put in place some some things several years ago for the Gold Coast Suns to actually equalise and give them a better opportunity, including getting Darwin as a zone and included academy access to their players.
“It’s just accepted that Gold Coast have got three picks in the top-10 this year and it’s like ‘oh well, that’s OK’.
“The team on the bottom for the last four years isn’t given any assistance at all and we’re decrying this, ‘should there be a lottery system’.
“Bottom line is the team that finishes on the bottom of the ladder should probably get the benefit of the best young talent in the land.”
Clarkson refuted speak North would search to tank the match towards the Suns to make sure they ended up with the No.1 draft decide.
The Kangaroos might additionally find yourself with a precedence decide if key defender Ben McKay, as anticipated, chooses to go away throughout free company on the finish of the season.
“We’re putting the best team out there that we can,” Clarkson mentioned.
“We’ve got 22 players on the field, and the sub, they’re hell-bent and they’re competitive beasts and they want to win.
“I know that there’s a nice nice prize out there, supposedly.
“Go tell that to West Coast last week, it didn’t bother them.
“We’ve tried to win all games that we’ve played to date and we’ve only won two of them. We’re not going to be laying down on the weekend.”
Clarkson mentioned the Kangaroos would ideally like to hold on to McKay.
“If we don’t feel like we get the compensation necessary for him then we’ll be fighting for him to stay, we want him to stay,” he mentioned.
“Let me know if there’s a six-foot five, six-foot six fullback, centre-half-back that’s in the draft to replace him, and there ain’t.
“What I do know, historically, is that if blokes haven’t signed by now, that’s usually a fair indication that they’re probably going to move on.”
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
