be applied in the first round for the bottom five or six clubs. When asked in 2011, the AFL Players Association's official position was that it would like to see the priority pick abolished due to the perception of tanking and its impact on the public's confidence in the game, rather than any suggestion of actual corruption. Statements alluding to tanking In 2011, sacked coach Dean Bailey stated that he coached to "ensure the club was well placed for draft picks" in 2008 and 2009, and admitted to playing players in unusual positions, but he never claimed that the team had deliberately lost matches. Tony Liberatore made similar statements in 2008, when he claimed that he felt like "winning wasn't the be all and end all" when Carlton received a priority pick in 2007, but he also said that he'd never seen anything to suggest that players were deliberately losing matches. In both cases, the statements were seen as an admission of guilt to tanking by some, but in the absence of an explicit directive to deliberately lose, acceptable by others, and the AFL was satisfied that neither team had broken its tanking rules. Notable matches in the tanking debate Round 22, 2007 – Melbourne vs Carlton The Round 22, 2007 match between and , nicknamed the Kreuzer Cup, was the most controversial match in the tanking debate. It was the last match of the regular season, and both Melbourne and Carlton had a record of 4–17, meaning that whichever team won the match would lose the chance at a priority draft pick, and both clubs had already avoided the ignominy of the wooden spoon, as had secured it with a final record of 3–18–1. Overall, this meant that there was no benefit for either club to win, but a significant benefit to losing. The stakes were particularly high in Carlton's case, because the club had also received a priority pick in the 2006 season; as such, if it lost this match, it would receive the No. 1 draft pick as its priority pick. In Melbourne's case, the priority pick it could have received would be the No. 18 pick; the No. 1 pick would go to wooden spooners Richmond if Melbourne lost the match. The match became known as the Kreuzer Cup, named after Northern Knights' ruckman Matthew Kreuzer, who had been expected to be (and was eventually, by