St Kilda Coach Alan Richardson believes an American style draft lottery system would help eradicate the hysteria surrounding the performance of some of the bottom teams on the ladder.

Richardson added that he also supported continuing the AFL’s current option of awarding a priority pick at the League’s discretion.

The proposed plan would see the bottom four team’s selections taken randomly to determine their order in an attempt to reduce the incentive to finish closer to the bottom of the ladder to secure the highest pick possible.

Richardson threw his support behind the suggestion on Thursday, saying he dislikes the constant noise regarding whether or not teams are trying to win games.

“In my personal opinion, I like it. I don’t like the noise around our competition at the moment about are teams trying? And I think teams are trying,” Richardson told reporters at a press conference on Thursday.

“But just the noise and the constant focus on that, I don’t think it’s good for our game. I think the lottery would alleviate a lot of that.”

Collingwood CEO Gary Pert put the agenda back in the public forum this week, but contrary to the NBA system that provides lower ranked teams with more balls in the lottery, thereby increasing its chance of securing the first pick, Pert suggested bracketing the teams so that the bottom placed team couldn’t nab worse than pick No. 4.

Richardson supported this philosophy behind this idea, and said the AFL should be able to use their power to award a disadvantaged team further draft assistance through a priority pick if the lottery system put their progress back further.

“I think the system that’s in place now where the AFL can come over the top and give a priority selection could alleviate that,” Richardson said.

“So if it is that there is a team that’s been struggling for a period of time and worst case scenario if it was the bottom four that were in the lottery got pick four in the draft then the AFL would have the ability to come over the top and not change that but then reward another selection, whether that be early in the first round or late in the first round. So that makes a bit of sense to me.”

The 2016 NAB AFL Draft will be held in Sydney on Friday, November 25. The division one under 18 championships begins this weekend in Adelaide and Perth, with the second division tournament already over.