2013 senior list average age

[AbbaRoos]

Sorry, can't help myself



Here's the average age of each clubs 22 (average over all 22 games) from 2012:


1 St Kilda 26.31
2 Sydney 25.94
3 Geelong 25.91
4 Fremantle 25.17
5 Hawthorn 25.06
6 Adelaide 24.98
7 West Coast 24.73
8 Carlton 24.69
9 Bulldogs 24.62
10 Essendon 24.59
11 Brisbane 24.46
12 North Melb 24.4
13 Collingwood 24.25
14 Port Adelaide 24.22
15 Melbourne 24
16 Richmond 23.89
17 Gold Coast 22.72
18 GWS 21.89

So as we can see being older generally means being better. Losing experience and becoming "younger" is not a good thing.

I have no idea about average list ages but they aren't really as relevant because those youngs guys aren't even best 22. There's no guarantee that when they come into the side they will improve it.

10 Essendon 17.59

12 North Melb 17.4

Adjusted for Fletcher and Harvey. Ha we still win

 

[Debris]

It interesting how Geleong is see to be an old list and past their best which may be a fair point but the premiers Sydney have an older list and won the flag yet are not spoken about as having an aging list and being past it.

It is probably more a perception that almost all the quality players at Geelong are old and most of the quality at Sydney is not. And I know that there has been some concern expressed over the age of Sydney's backline.

 

[The Bomb]

Essendon

2012 season when we Fielded a older team
Played: 11
Won: 9
Lost: 2

2012 season when we Fielded a younger team
Played: 11
Lost: 9
Won: 2

 

[NUFC Tiger]

oh great, another one of these threads - always nice to keep up to date with average ages!

 

[35Daicos]

oh great, another one of these threads - always nice to keep up to date with average ages!

Come on! There are probably thousands of threads on BigFooty that you ignore because they don't interest you, why not just ignore this one too. Some people, and I'm one of them, find this sort of thing utterly fascinating.

 

[Tas]

Come on! There are probably thousands of threads on BigFooty that you ignore because they don't interest you, why not just ignore this one too. Some people, and I'm one of them, find this sort of thing utterly fascinating.

If only the morons would stay out of the thread, it is a big ask I know, then it would be better. For those who aren't interested then just * off and don't add in your one line bullshit which adds nothing.

It isn't a pissing contest, the age of a squad directly impacts recruiting strategy, teams with very young lists start to recruit more mature aged players, those that are getting long in the tooth start to add more kids to the list.

How clubs manage their lists over the years is interesting to me as decisions they make now have far reaching implications.

 

[Doss]

Essendon have lost McVeigh (31), Dyson (27), Prismall (26), Slattery (26), Monfries (25), Lee (25), Lonergan (25), Reimers (23), Long (21) and Ross (21)....apparently Steinberg (20) is going to be re-drafted.

Irrelevant of whether many of them were best 22, I imagine our average age would have taken quite a dive because of all of these.

 

[syl]

If only the morons would stay out of the thread, it is a big ask I know, then it would be better. For those who aren't interested then just **** off and don't add in your one line bullshit which adds nothing.

It isn't a pissing contest, the age of a squad directly impacts recruiting strategy, teams with very young lists start to recruit more mature aged players, those that are getting long in the tooth start to add more kids to the list.

How clubs manage their lists over the years is interesting to me as decisions they make now have far reaching implications.

Exactly. Ignore the flogs.

I will look at the dees list tomorrow, but I think it will have remained rather static as the replacements have been almost like for like. 1 year older obviously.

We're starting to get close to the bottom of that peak age group, do I hope to see some real improvement.

 

[theyellowsash]

 

[Geddy Lee]

I hope our average age has gone up substantially.

Being young is s**t.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

If only the morons would stay out of the thread, it is a big ask I know, then it would be better. For those who aren't interested then just **** off and don't add in your one line bullshit which adds nothing.

It isn't a pissing contest, the age of a squad directly impacts recruiting strategy, teams with very young lists start to recruit more mature aged players, those that are getting long in the tooth start to add more kids to the list.

How clubs manage their lists over the years is interesting to me as decisions they make now have far reaching implications.

I'd say the median age would be a better indicator of that than the mean age though. Fletcher adds nearly half a year to Essendon's mean age by himself, but the Dons only have two other players who will be over 30 by the end of 2013 (and both: Hille and Lovett-Murray should definitely be retirement/delistment candidates by the end of the year).

 

[Albert Ross]

Essendon have lost McVeigh (31), Dyson (27), Prismall (26), Slattery (26), Monfries (25), Lee (25), Lonergan (25), Reimers (23), Long (21) and Ross (21)....apparently Steinberg (20) is going to be re-drafted.

Irrelevant of whether many of them were best 22, I imagine our average age would have taken quite a dive because of all of these.

Very few clubs cut all their 19 year olds and bring in a bunch of 26 year olds to replace them. I'd guess that at this time of the year most lists would see their average age decrease.

 

[Richo83]

If only the morons would stay out of the thread, it is a big ask I know, then it would be better. For those who aren't interested then just **** off and don't add in your one line bullshit which adds nothing.

It isn't a pissing contest, the age of a squad directly impacts recruiting strategy, teams with very young lists start to recruit more mature aged players, those that are getting long in the tooth start to add more kids to the list.

How clubs manage their lists over the years is interesting to me as decisions they make now have far reaching implications.

The age of a team and the best 22 gives a fairly good indication of where they're going to finish as well. Of that list that barry gave, 6 of the top 8 teams finished in the top 8, and of the top 8 teams, they all came within the 13 oldest best 22 teams of the year. So it suggests that to make a run for the finals, you need to have a list which consistently averages around 24.5 years to crack the finals. The grand finalists came from the top five oldest clubs, which is not surprising. It possibly also explains why Lyon chose Fremantle, because age wise, they're somewhat like St Kilda, and Lyon probably thought that he could make what is one of the oldest lists in the league reach finals, which is what they should be doing given their age of their list.

Of course, there are outliers, like St Kilda and Collingwood, but it seems to be a general trend. And you're right, such data does explain club actions, like the fact that Richmond recruited three mature aged players to give the side depth and experience. It also shines some light into club futures. I would worry if I were a St Kilda fan. I would also worry if I were a Footscray fan, although to be fair to Footscray, they are embracing youth and do have a good core group of players coming through. I'd be very happy if I were a Collingwood fan, and it does affirm the point that most of Collingwood's stars are fairly young. It suggests that Carlton and Essendon are capable of making finals, and even top four, and the likelyhood of them making finals rests upon their capacity to stay fit. It also proves to me why Richmond probably struggle with injuries most of any club outside expansion clubs, because the players it uses to replace injured players are most if not all kids. Replacing good kids with inexperienced kids is not a recipe for success, which explains Richmond's recruiting strategy in recent months.

One thing which confused me about North is that they reduced the age of their list, rather than the other way around. Going by that list, North were the second youngest top 8 side this year behind Collingwood, who I think benefit from having high quality drafting staff and player facilities. I just wonder whether North made the right move here. Of course, some of the moves were forced, yet I think it's interesting that North didn't try and chase after mature agers to help out the kids, who were clearly spent by September.

 

[Tas]

I'd say the median age would be a better indicator of that than the mean age though. Fletcher adds nearly half a year to Essendon's mean age by himself, but the Dons only have two other players who will be over 30 by the end of 2013 (and both: Hille and Lovett-Murray should definitely be retirement/delistment candidates by the end of the year).

As at 1/1/2013 our Median age will be 22.27945, average will be 23.29712.
Age distribution will be(with average games played):
18: 2 (0)
19: 3 (0.7)
20: 7 (17.9)
21: 7 (32.6)
22: 3 (19.0)
23: 4 (23.0)
24: 4 (82.5)
25: 2 (89.0)
26: 3 (70.7)
27: 2 (122.5)
29: 1 (193.0)
30: 1 (222.0)
34: 1 (346.0)

In previous years we carried a lot of mature players who weren't in our best 22, all of them were cut at the end of the year, you would have to go down to 23 years of age to find the first person that wasn't in our best team in 2012 so our 'best team' would have a higher age band average or median than our list would compared to 2012.

 

[Tas]

The age of a team and the best 22 gives a fairly good indication of where they're going to finish as well. Of that list that barry gave, 6 of the top 8 teams finished in the top 8, and of the top 8 teams, they all came within the 13 oldest best 22 teams of the year. So it suggests that to make a run for the finals, you need to have a list which consistently averages around 24.5 years to crack the finals. The grand finalists came from the top five oldest clubs, which is not surprising. It possibly also explains why Lyon chose Fremantle, because age wise, they're somewhat like St Kilda, and Lyon probably thought that he could make what is one of the oldest lists in the league reach finals, which is what they should be doing given their age of their list.

My problem is I can only realistically give our best 15 or so. We probably have another group of 15 who would have e legitimate claim on the remaining spots. We also recruited a number of guys who have been in the system for a few years who may even displace one or two of our 2012 best 22.

For a club like Hawks or Collingwood who have a fairly settled senior group it would probably be a lot easier to establish their best 22.

Of course, there are outliers, like St Kilda and Collingwood, but it seems to be a general trend. And you're right, such data does explain club actions, like the fact that Richmond recruited three mature aged players to give the side depth and experience. It also shines some light into club futures. I would worry if I were a St Kilda fan. I would also worry if I were a Footscray fan, although to be fair to Footscray, they are embracing youth and do have a good core group of players coming through. I'd be very happy if I were a Collingwood fan, and it does affirm the point that most of Collingwood's stars are fairly young. It suggests that Carlton and Essendon are capable of making finals, and even top four, and the likelyhood of them making finals rests upon their capacity to stay fit. It also proves to me why Richmond probably struggle with injuries most of any club outside expansion clubs, because the players it uses to replace injured players are most if not all kids. Replacing good kids with inexperienced kids is not a recipe for success, which explains Richmond's recruiting strategy in recent months.

I don't think fans of any clubs need necessarily be worried, understanding the nature of the list will shine some light on why their recruiters have made the decisions they have made or at least the theory behind why they have made the decisions. Not all club execute recruitment or development as well as others but I think all clubs across the board are investing more resources into recruitment and list management.

One thing which confused me about North is that they reduced the age of their list, rather than the other way around. Going by that list, North were the second youngest top 8 side this year behind Collingwood, who I think benefit from having high quality drafting staff and player facilities. I just wonder whether North made the right move here. Of course, some of the moves were forced, yet I think it's interesting that North didn't try and chase after mature agers to help out the kids, who were clearly spent by September.

I don't think it was premeditated exactly. McIntosh and Pedersen wanted to go for more opportunity and Edwards had slipped down the pecking order with Hansen and Tarrant stepping up once they came into the side. Garlett was offered a contract but he wanted to go home, be it playing AFL or WAFL and we de-listed Campbell who was contracted for off-field reasons.

We then purged guys who were a bit younger in Warren and McKinley who while were pretty good at amateur level couldn't find the same level of output at AFL level and I don't think a few more years would have improved them significantly.

Our list is still recovering from mismanagement during the Laidley era, not entirely his fault but we didn't put on enough quality players during his 7 years which left a big hole in our list. Our players in the 26+ age group is very thin and it is far from ideal for a finals team.

 

[swansfan51]

Good to see Sydney are still too old - should see us dropping out of the finals yet again

 

[Doss]

Very few clubs cut all their 19 year olds and bring in a bunch of 26 year olds to replace them. I'd guess that at this time of the year most lists would see their average age decrease.

For sure, but if you compare our 2012 leavers compared to our 2011 leavers (only one over 25 and that was 28 year old Welsh), I suspect that would more than make up the difference of each player being a year older than this time last year.

 

[aussierulesrules]

I would worry if I were a St Kilda fan.

You wouldn't if you realised that we have 24 on our senior list who are going to be 24 or under at the start of next season, plus another 5 on the rookie list who will be 22 or under. (Who have all been retained from this year, so we presumably rate them all reasonably highly, if we want to keep them all on at the expense of having even a single pick in this year's rookie draft, despite the fact they would have all been on just one year contracts this year).

Apart from the quality young talent that we already had on our list (eg. Jack Steven, Ben McEvoy, Rhys Stanley, Ahmed Saad, Arryn Siposs, Tom Simpkin, Sam Dunell, Jack Newnes, Tom Ledger, Dan Markworth, Seb Ross, who will all be 23 or under at the start of next season and who all played either a significant role in our side this year, or at least had a taste, except Markworth, who was very close and named emergency several times), we just added 2 more from the top 25 in this year's draft and two more from the top 45, as well as adding 3 others, who are also under 22, but who are likely to be ready to go from the start of next year, having either played senior AFL football previously (Tom Hickey and Dylan Roberton, who neither Gold Coast nor Freo wanted to lose, but who both wanted out for personal reasons relating to where they wanted to live), or who have been on an AFL list previously and played senior state level footy for at least a coupe of years and dominated there this year (Tom Lee), plus Trent Dennis Lane, who will also be 24 or under at the start of next year, has AFL experience and was named emergency for Sydney for this year's GF.

Despite the fact most of them were not taken in the top 10 of the draft (which, at the end of the day is an advantage, but not a guarantee and not being drafted there doesn't mean you can't be a "gun", either) we have ample "youth", despite the common misconception in BF land, but unlike some teams, we get to ease them into AFL footy more gradually and get to have them learn off the likes of Lenny Hayes, Nick Riewoldt, Nick Dal Santo, Stephen Milne, Sam Fisher, Leigh Montagna, Sean Dempster, etc. in a highly competitive team, in "high pressure" games. (We were 4 wins off a top 4 spot this year and lost 4 games by 8 points or less- including against Collingwood, and Adelaide in Adelaide- plus another by 12 points and another where we were 4 points down (at the SCG) inside the last 4 minutes).

So there is no particular need for us to "bottom out", as Sydney (who apparently believe it is a cop-out) have shown, especially now that free agency is upon us. We lost Goddard this year, which meant that we didn't really want to participate in free agency (as it would have meant our pick 13 we got as compo for losing him would likely have been downgraded), but if we manage to sign everyone up we want to keep next year (and now that Goddard has gone, freeing up even more cap space, we ought to be able to sign everyone we really want to keep), we will hopefully be able to hit free agency/trade week hard at the end of 2013, especially if we renegotiate a couple of contracts for next year, to take up the space we had set aside for Goddard. (Nick Riewoldt has just had his contract extended, for example, so I imagine a big chunk of it will be paid to him next year, with very little/much less the following, helping to free up loads of cap space for 2014).

So on top of having 29 on our senior and rookie lists who are going to be 24 or under at the start of next year (all things being equal), we could also have as much as $1 million (or even more, depending on who retires) of cap space free for 2014, to hit trade week/free agency period with at the end of next season.
The last time we had that much free cap space (or anywhere near it) would have been 2000, I imagine, when we added Fraser Gehrig, Aaron Hamill and Steven Lawrence in that trade week and we could be aiming for something somewhat similar in 11 months time, after being very aggressive in trade week this year.

I know I'm not worried!

 

[35Daicos]

Players Average Age - 02/12/2012 (Primary List Only)
Ade - 23.00
Bri - 22.92
Carl - 23.37
Coll - 23.61
Ess - 23.21
Fre - 23.26
Geel - 23.60
GC - 21.88
GWS - 20.25
Haw - 23.65
Mel - 22.70
NM - 22.73
PA - 22.56
Rich - 22.89
SK - 23.73
Syd - 23.97
WC - 23.65
WB - 22.68
AFL - 22.94

Players Aged 27-29 - 02/12/2012 (Primary List Only)
Ade - 6
Bri - 7
Carl - 5
Coll - 7
Ess - 4
Fre - 6
Geel - 8
GC - 5
GWS - 2
Haw - 4
Mel - 6
NM - 3
PA - 4
Rich -3
SK - 5
Syd - 6
WC - 4
WB - 4
AFL - 89

Players 30+ - 02/12/2012 (Primary List Only)
Ade - 1
Bri - 2
Carl - 1
Coll - 2
Ess - 3
Fre - 2
Geel - 5
GC - 0
GWS - 1
Haw - 5
Mel - 0
NM - 2
PA - 1
Rich - 2
SK - 6
Syd - 5
WC - 3
WB - 3
AFL - 44

 

[35Daicos]

^ If I was better at (BigFooty) table formatting I'd have put the above figures in a table, and shown a lot more age categories, % in age categories, etc., and it would have looked much neater and perhaps taken up less space, but I'm not!

 

[LBJ6]

Essendon

2012 season when we Fielded a older team
Played: 11
Won: 9
Lost: 2

2012 season when we Fielded a younger team
Played: 11
Lost: 9
Won: 2

Melbourne

2012 season when we fielded an older team:
Played: 5
Won: 3
Lost: 2

2012 season when we fielded a younger team:
Played: 17
Won: 1
Lost: 16

Yay for excuses!!!!!!

 

[35Daicos]

Players 17-19 - 02/12/2012 (Primary List Only)
Ade - 6
Bri - 8
Carl - 5
Coll - 6
Ess - 8
Fre - 8
Geel - 8
GC - 7
GWS - 30
Haw - 6
Mel - 6
NM - 5
PA - 8
Rich - 8
SK - 9
Syd - 7
WC - 4
WB - 9
AFL - 148

Players 20-23 - 02/12/2012 (Primary List Only)
Ade - 18
Bri - 18
Carl - 17
Coll - 13
Ess - 13
Fre - 11
Geel - 14
GC - 22
GWS - 13
Haw - 15
Mel - 19
NM - 21
PA - 16
Rich - 12
SK - 12
Syd - 11
WC - 18
WB - 15
AFL - 278

Players 24-26 - 02/12/2012 (Primary List Only)
Ade - 8
Bri - 4
Carl - 10
Coll - 10
Ess - 11
Fre - 11
Geel - 5
GC - 8
GWS - 2
Haw - 10
Mel - 9
NM - 9
PA - 10
Rich - 13
SK - 8
Syd - 8
WC - 11
WB - 7
AFL - 154

 

[Richo83]

I don't think fans of any clubs need necessarily be worried, understanding the nature of the list will shine some light on why their recruiters have made the decisions they have made or at least the theory behind why they have made the decisions. Not all club execute recruitment or development as well as others but I think all clubs across the board are investing more resources into recruitment and list management.

They may well be, but St Kilda are facing a cliff that I doubt they can dig themselves out of. St Kilda banked on this group winning the grand final, and like Footscray, they didn't, and I expect them to go south like Footscray did.

I don't think it was premeditated exactly. McIntosh and Pedersen wanted to go for more opportunity and Edwards had slipped down the pecking order with Hansen and Tarrant stepping up once they came into the side. Garlett was offered a contract but he wanted to go home, be it playing AFL or WAFL and we de-listed Campbell who was contracted for off-field reasons..

I'm aware it wasn't planned, but it happened, and what happens matters.

 

[Richo83]

(We were 4 wins off a top 4 spot this year and lost 4 games by 8 points or less- including against Collingwood, and Adelaide in Adelaide- plus another by 12 points and another where we were 4 points down (at the SCG) inside the last 4 minutes).

So did Richmond. There are eight sides who plan to make the finals again and about four or five who plan to sneak in there.

So there is no particular need for us to "bottom out", as Sydney (who apparently believe it is a cop-out) have shown, especially now that free agency is upon us.

Yes, because free agency has been so kind to St Kilda this year. Your ability to top up via free agency is also provided to every other club in the league. What you don't have is Sydney's fantastic trading history.

 

[Ron The Bear]

You wouldn't if you realised that we have 24 on our senior list who are going to be 24 or under at the start of next season, plus another 5 on the rookie list who will be 22 or under.

But they never get played at St.Kilda. H&A games by under-24's:

Club|2008|2009|2010|2011|2012
\Adelaide|202|225|215|256|237
\Brisbane|265|239|214|289|294
\Carlton|258|271|305|225|234
\Collingwood|226|269|262|188|213
\Essendon|281|282|299|299|251
\Fremantle|182|206|244|249|167
\Geelong|161|145|104|147|171
\Gold Coast||||331|308
\Greater Western Sydney|||||400
\Hawthorn|225|275|221|201|207
\Melbourne|265|284|288|328|254
\North Melbourne|161|234|280|257|219
\Port Adelaide|242|237|213|218|230
\Richmond|266|327|354|311|266
\St.Kilda|127|157|121|107|146
\Sydney|147|152|167|203|176
\West Coast|203|270|332|257|246
\Western Bulldogs|165|187|165|201|219

They'll need to be well above average to prevent St.Kilda falling off a cliff when the veterans depart.