MFC 2009 List - by age bracket

[RandB]

This is a breakdown of our list by age brackets, the age being the player's age this year. Obviously most players will not have had their birthday by round 1 but for ease of calculation I did it this way - also this is (bar one or two) the age list we will have come draft time near the end of the year so it is handy to see where we will be at when those decisions are made. Some of you may argue for different age brackets or ages as at round 1 but as I said this is more an over-all guide of where we're at this year over-all.

One last thing, the % figures of the age groups are of both the senior and rookie lists combined (ie out of 46 players) so don't read too much into those figures.

Of note:

We have 33 players who will still be under 25 at the end of this calendar year.

We have a 2 year gap between Green + Wheatley and the rest of the pack which could be seen as the forefront of the generation gap. I have drawn a theoretical line here. Not to rite these players off, but although they are valuable for the short term it is unlikely that they will be apart of our next major successes (we have Green until the end of 2011 which is good for versatility in anycase and he may possible be an exception here.).

Due to more inevitable delistings of senior players, the number of players that we have who are older than the head of the main pack has shrunk to just 6 players! In other words we have 40 players who arguably are of age to be in a next generation successfull side - note Aaron Davey is at the highest echelon of this group.

McLean is 5 years ahead of the tail in Watts and just 3 years below Davey (26). Going by the list, barring any variations this year, McLean doesn't have too much competition for the captaincy among the 9 players older than him within the next generation pack. McLean you would think would be in the running next year if the club decided to go with a younger captain. Of course someone like Green may get the gig if they want to stick with an older player.

Although the guts (20 - 24) of our next generation list makes up exactly half of our total list number, 4 of those players are on the rookie list. You would suspect that if not many of those 4 make an impression this year then they are becoming a liability except for maybe Spencer who looks like a legitimate keeper due to being a ruckman. Admittedly 2 rookie spots were added last year for each club but there is a reason for that with GC coming on so really should we concentrate on some more youngsters at the end of this year if the older ones are stagnant?

I would appreciate people's thoughts on our current list breakdown. Obviously by the end of the year we will have an enormous insight as to how promising it is. In principle though (regardless of game plan, development etc) I think our list has a pretty good spread.
__________________

30+ (4) 8.7%
__________________

McDonald 33

Robertson 31

Bruce 30
Whelan 30
__________________

25 - 29 (9) 19.6%
__________________

Green 28
Wheatley 28
..............................Generation Gap.........................

Davey 26
Jamar 26
Miller 26

Johnson 25
Moloney 25
Rivers 25
Warnock 25
__________________

20 - 24 (23) 50%
__________________

Bell 24
Sylvia 24

Hughes 23
Martin 23
McLean 23
Meesen 23

Bate 22
Buckley 22
Dunn 22
Newton 22
Valenti 22

Bail 21
Bartram 21
Frawley 21
Garland 21
Jones 21
Jurrah 21
Petterd 21
Wonaeamirri 21

Cheney 20
Grimes 20
Spencer 20
Zomer 20
__________________

Teenagers (10) 21.7%
__________________

Bennell 19
Healey 19
Jetta 19
Maric 19
McKenzie 19
McNamara 19
Morton 19
Strauss 19

Blease 18
Watts 18

 

[whelan=legend]

Our 22's and under are unbelievable quality. Guess that's what happens when you're down the bottom for a while.

 

[Deenamite]

Our 22's and under are unbelievable quality. Guess that's what happens when you're down the bottom for a while.

Very true. You'd be disapointed if we hadn't done well out of our years at the bottom. Even so, it looks likely we'll add to that collection of quality Under 22's this year with some high draft picks.

 

[brock sylvia]

clearly a lot of work gone into this RandB however i feel all these percentages are kinda pointless.

If you just put our list on and their respective age that would have been more than enough.

Also from bail to wonnaemiri, i reckon these 21 year olds are pure quality.

 

[RandB]

clearly a lot of work gone into this RandB however i feel all these percentages are kinda pointless.

If you just put our list on and their respective age that would have been more than enough.

Also from bail to wonnaemiri, i reckon these 21 year olds are pure quality.

Yeah, the % figures were not overly important (on their own) as I mentioned in the post. The only reason I listed them was to give an idea as to how we have transformed the side in the last couple of years. Compare these figures to when we had a top heavy side at the end of '06. Naturally we will let some players go and others will surprise us. Age numbers alone don't mean everything and I didn't want to suggest otherwise but our turnaround in youth stocks has been monumental. Personally I think the % figures are still handy to try and project our list breakdown in a few years time. Perhaps the most significant one would have been the % of players above the generation gap which is now just 13%. Considering the amount of angst on this board in the last couple of years about rebuilding (even though we already were) I think this figure shows that we are in no way dependent on senior players anymore even though their assistance and guidance is still vey important.

Also the "generation gap" is something I use very losely here also. We all know that there has been a gap in the side over the last couple of years with youth coming in. Obviously Green being 2 years older than Davey doesn't constitute a "generational" difference (there is even a 2 year gap between Green and Bruce) but going by the old school approach that is where you might put a line if you had to. Just a theoretical approach, don't take it as gospel.

Either way this is all just a general snap shot of where we will be at the end of the year. Some people see significance in some numbers and others elsewhere, just putting this out there.

Thanks for the feedback anyway.

 

[Bartram_Class]

The last four names on that list are pretty exciting.