North Melbourne coach has hit out at criticism, "decrying" the Kangaroos for requesting assistance from the AFL, questioning why his club can't gain an advantage at the draft while others in a better position can.
The Roos had opened "informal discussions" with the league in regard to potentially securing a draft assistance package for the second year in a row, with the Arden Street club understood to be looking to gain priority access to Larke Medal winner Riley Sanders.
An application to enrol Sanders as a member of North Melbourne's Next Generation Academy would be a key step in the club potentially earning first access to the Tasmanian and Sandringham Dragons midfielder.
Viewed as a near-certain top 10 draft selection, Sanders would greatly add to the Kangaroos' rebuild and would be the latest face to be involved in the AFL's history of priority draft access.
The Gold Coast Suns secured a list management rescue package ahead of the 2019 draft, where they were handed Pick 1 (in addition to already holding Pick 2) and the first selection of the second-round of the same count, while also gaining a mid-first-round pick for the following year's draft and saw Darwin added to their Academy zone, among other concessions.
The package has aided the Suns in recent years as both Matt Rowell and Noah Anderson who joins as the first two picks in the 2019 draft, look set to lead the Queensland club for the years to come, with North Melbourne potentially looking to gain the same advantage through the acquisition of Sanders.
The Kangaroos have won just 11 games since the start of the 2020 season, with a loss against the Suns this weekend set to see the club claim its third wooden spoon in as many years.
Some view Saturday's game in Tasmania as one the Kangaroos would prefer to lose rather than win, with a defeat locking them into bottom spot and, therefore, Pick 1 for this year's draft.
The situation has led to calls for the FL to potentially look at introducing a 'lottery' system for the opening selections of the draft, with the bottom few sides each given a differing percentage to claim Pick 1 through a new system.
When asked if a new system would aid the competition, Clarkson denounced the concept, reaffirming the Kanagroos' needs for assistance while questioning the Suns' own access to three of this year's top prospects through their Academy.
"There'd be just as many critics that'd say the lottery system isn't fair either," Clarkson told reporters on Thursday.ย
"The bottom line is that North Melbourne are where they are because they've been the most poorly performed team in the competition for the last four years.
"For goodness sake, the league put in place some things several years ago for the Gold Coast Suns to actually equalise and actually give them a better opportunity. It included getting Darwin as a zone, it included Academy access to their players, it included Rowell and Anderson going to their club.
"This year they're going to (potentially) have three picks in the top 10, and North Melbourne put up their hand and say 'we've finished bottom in the last four years and we actually might need a little bit of help', and yet it's just accepted that Gold Coast get three picks in the top 10 this year.
"Oh well that's okay, yet the team on the bottom of the ladder for the last four years isn't given any assistance at all and we're decrying this side and suggesting whether there should be a letter system. Just let it play out.
"There's whiskers on it everywhere with a lottery system. The bottom line is that the team that finishes on the bottom of the ladder should probably get the benefit of the best young talent in the land.
"Last week that was West Coast. This week it's us. What the result going to be of this weekend's games? If it's not Pick 1 for us it'll be Pick 2. We'll try and pick the best player we can with either pick and do what we can to make our club as good as we possibly can.
"The whole idea of equalisation is to give teams who have poorly performed a chance to climb back up the ladder."
While a loss to the Suns would give the Roos first dibs for top-rated draft talent Harley, Reid, Clarkson said his playing group are "hell-bent on wanting to win" in Round 24.
A win wouldn't necessarily guarantee a move up the ladder, with West Coast still needing to lose against Adelaide on Saturday night for the two clubs to swap spots on the ladder for the second week in a row.
Clarkson said he was eager to snap the club's current 20-game losing run, with the club's attention not drawn toward securing Pick 1.
"I want to win, so we'll be putting the best team out there that we can," he said.
"We went through some vision this morning about how we can defend better. We didn't do it as well as we would've liked against Richmond. Earlier in the week we looked at some stuff on our offence that we were really pleased about that gave us chances to score.
"We're just continuing to work on our game, we've 22 players and a sub that are just hell-bent on wanting to win.
"I know there's that nice prize out there, but go and tell that to West Coast last week. It didn't bother them and I reckon there's great merit in that. That's what we'll be pushing our players to do to.
"We're not going to be laying down."
North Melbourne will host the Gold Coast Suns at Blundstone Arena at 1:45pm (AEST) on Saturday.
