Call me old-fashioned but I just can't see the point of the NAB Cup and the AFL's ridiculously long pre-season.
With the start of the official AFL season still three weeks away, already six players have succumbed to season-ending knee injuries in meaningless matches.
The AFL argues that a player can be injured at any time but if football must be played at this time of year - after all it is still summer - then at least extend the home and away season and play matches that actually mean something.
To have a five week lead-in to a 22-week season - plus four weeks of finals - just makes no sense, particularly in a competition which already has a hopelessly compromised draw in which all clubs do not play each other twice.
With 16 teams, it would take 30 rounds to achieve that - which is impossible - but a 24- or 26-round season would at least enable more teams to play each other twice and create a more equitable fixture.
A 24-round season would allow for a shortened pre-season of two weeks thus limiting the amount of time in which players can get injured before the season starts.
That way the AFL could still use the pre-season to 'sell' its code as it does now by playing practice matches in places that don't normally get to see live AFL football such as Cairns, Albany, Alice Springs, Narrandera, Bendigo and Shepparton.
These matches would essentially be just warm-up games - as they are now - and not part of any organised competition such as the NAB Cup.
At present all 16 teams take part in the NAB Cup - a knockout competition played on regular AFL venues - while the losers then play in practice matches across far-flung locations across the country.
But why not scrap the NAB Cup completely and just play two weeks of practice matches before an extended home and away season - as Kangaroos coach Dean Laidley suggested recently when he labeled last Friday's practice match against Brisbane as a waste of time.
A two week pre-season would also limit the amount of travel clubs have to endure before the start of the home and away season as well as building up the mystery and the intrigue before the start of the premiership season.
In contrast the current system over-exposes the game and the clubs and unnecessarily dampens the expectations for many fans even before the season has begun.
The AFL's other arguments for maintaining the NAB Cup are that if offers all clubs another chance to win a trophy as well as generating extra income through the recently increased prizemoney on offer.
But these arguments simply don't stand up.
For a start virtually every club seems embarrassed at the prospect of winning the NAB Cup - remember St Kilda coach Grant Thomas' glum expression as he lifted the trophy in 2004 - for fear of being accused by supporters of peaking too early.
Secondly most clubs - particularly Sydney - do their utmost to get knocked out of the competition early by resting the bulk of their best players and who can blame them after the loss of last year's best-and-fairest runner-up Nick Malceski in their first round NAB Cup match this year to a season-ending knee injury.
And thirdly do you know of any football fan that runs around boasting their team won the NAB Cup?
Certainly the 2005 and 2007 triumphs meant little to Carlton fans who then watched their club run last and second last respectively in those two seasons.
If the competition is not taken seriously by the clubs or the fans then why play it and instead why not plough the prizemoney on offer into the home and away season.
Could the answer really be that the NAB Cup is only about ensuring that one of the AFL's major sponsors - the National Australia Bank - gets value for the considerable amount of money they have poured into AFL coffers through their lucrative sponsorship deal, which also includes naming rights for the national draft and the Rising Star award?
Right now that appears the only reason a pre-season competition that nobody wants or cares about continues on year after year.