About time this debate tanked

A few words from a departing coach and we’re all off on the chase again — led by that paragon of virtue and honesty, The Rt Hon Jeffrey Gibb Kennett — desperate to label someone as a cheat because they ‘tanked’.

 

Well, what IS tanking? Here’s a couple of pertinent excerpts from a definition on dictionary.reference.com:

7. Slang . to do poorly or decline rapidly; fail: The movie tanked at the box office.

9. go in the tank, Boxing Slang. to go through the motions of a match but deliberately lose because of an illicit prearrangement or fix; throw a fight.

…

tank "to lose or fail," 1976, originally in tennis jargon, but said there to be from boxing, from tank (n.) in some sense. Tanked "drunk" is from 1893.

…

tv. & in. to lose a game deliberately. : The manager got wind of a plan to tank Friday's game.

 

From the Oxford dictionaries online:

2 [no object] US informal fail completely, especially at great financial cost.
[with object] North American informal (in sport) deliberately lose or fail to finish (a match).

 

And the Merriam Webster dictionaries online:

2: to make no effort to win : lose intentionally <tanked the match>

1: to lose intentionally : give up in competition

 

I hope we can agree, readers, that the preponderance of learned opinion is that tanking means deliberately or intentionally losing.

 

Since much of the tanking debate has focussed on Dean Bailey’s Melbourne, let’s consider some scenarios.

 

Does anyone seriously contend that Bailey told his players to go out and give less than 100%? Does anyone seriously believe that Bailey would have pulled key players from the ground to turn around a winning position in a game? Does anyone expect any sane person to believe that Dean Bailey instructed his players not to win?

 

The answer to all is, of course, No. Did the Demons tank? No.

 

Is it possible to enter a sporting contest with long-term objectives over and above simply winning or losing? Of course it is.

 

Does anyone seriously suggest that the likes of Jack Watts did not get valuable experience for the future in playing against bigger and stronger opponents? Were those the best possible match-ups on the day? Possibly not. Did they make the difference between winning and losing? Probably not. Will Watts be a better player sooner for having the experience? Probably.