Toast Tommy Sheridan

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The purpose of introducing "youth" is to inject fresh players into the team, and hope that they can bring something useful and improve the overall capability of the team. Doesn't really matter how old/young they are.

I actually disagree with many here. Young players don't magically get better just because they get the experience of playing a few games of AFL footy. If it's true, GWS and GC should be in premiership contention now, not us, Hawthorne and Sydney. Actually, given the hectic schedule of AFL footy, the opposite may be true. They will be force to adapt and just play a role in the team, when they should be developing new skills in the seconds.

Being overseas, I don't get to see how our Peels players are going. But I trust the coaches do, they watch the players train and play every day/week. If a player is ready, they will get a game.

The truth is, yes, we don't see a lot of "youth" being given games. But when they do, they seem to have this knack for sticking around. Neale, Sutcliffe, Sheridan, Taberner, Pearce, potentially Croz as well. If Weller or Blakely is already AFL ready, that is fantastic and we should play them. If not, give them time to develop their skills properly in Peel.
 
If you can't see that 22 year old players who've played 30 games need more time to develop then there's no point discussing it.

22 year old players from other clubs have played 80 games. Brandon Ellis, the pick before Sheridan in the 2011 draft, played his 81st game on Saturday.
 

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Comparing Lyons player development to other clubs in similar flag contention as a point of reference is very relevant.

It's not relevant to the question of whether he plays youth or not.

As I said, there are two separate questions here:

Does Ross Lyon play youth? The answer is obviously no.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? The answer to this is obviously up for debate.

What I am taking issue with is people criticising others for expressing the first, which is self-evidently true.
 
22 year old players from other clubs have played 80 games. Brandon Ellis, the pick before Sheridan in the 2011 draft, played his 81st game on Saturday.
Lachie Neale from the 2011 draft has played 62 whilst having to break into a good team...
Also have a look at pick 16 to our next pick 29 and Sheridan off the top off my head has played more games then the rest of them.
 
Lachie Neale from the 2011 draft has played 62 whilst having to break into a good team...
Also have a look at pick 16 to our next pick 29 and Sheridan off the top off my head has played more games then the rest of them.

I think you're confusing 2 different arguments.

Not using Sheridan as an example of youth. I was pointing out that plenty of 22 year olds have played more than 30 games. Players are mostly developed by the time they are 22. Sheridan is not a "young bloke" any more. He's close to the average age of an AFL player (around 24 years old is the average age of senior listed players in the AFL).

Fremantle have the oldest list in the AFL and the least amount of games for players born 1994 or later of any team in the AFL. 12 games total, 2 to Apeness and 8 to Alex Pearce. 1 each to Tanner Smith and Craig Moller in the St. Kilda tank game. And it's fair to say that Alex Pearce wouldn't have debuted at all yet were it not for the injuries to Dawson, Silvagni and Johnson.

Here's the rest of the top 8:

Total Games played by players born in 1994 or later:

Fremantle: 12
Hawthorn: 47
Sydney: 42
West Coast: 50
Richmond: 108
Western Bulldogs: 200+
Adelaide: 85
North Melbourne: 58

As I'm sure must be incredibly obvious to anyone who can read, Fremantle is a massive outlier in the competition in terms of how unwilling it is to play youth.
 
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I think you're confusing 2 different arguments.

Not using Sheridan as an example of youth. I was pointing out that plenty of 22 year olds have played more than 30 games. Players are mostly developed by the time they are 22. Sheridan is not a "young bloke" any more. He's close to the average age of an AFL player (around 24 years old is the average age of senior listed players in the AFL).

Fremantle have the oldest list in the AFL and the least amount of games for players in 1994 or later of any team in the AFL. 12 games total, 2 to Apeness and 8 to Alex Pearce. 1 each to Tanner Smith and Craig Moller in the St. Kilda tank game. And it's fair to say that Alex Pearce wouldn't have debuted at all yet were it not for the injuries to Dawson, Silvagni and Johnson.

Here's the rest of the top 8:

Total Games played by players born in 1994 or later:

Fremantle: 12
Hawthorn: 47
Sydney: 42
West Coast: 50
Richmond: 108
Western Bulldogs: 200+
Adelaide: 85
North Melbourne: 58

As I'm sure must be incredibly obvious to anyone who can read, Fremantle is a massive outlier in the competition in terms of how unwilling it is to play youth.

None of those other teams were
9-0 and clear on top though. Would I like to see a couple draftees debut? Absolutely. But not many guys were doing much wrong early & we had seasoned players in the WAFL getting 30+ regularly who deserved 1st crack.
We're not the team who just plays youth for the sake of it now.
Blakely Weller Langdon & Gray will all get a game this year. Hopefully when they do, they take it.
 
22 year old players from other clubs have played 80 games. Brandon Ellis, the pick before Sheridan in the 2011 draft, played his 81st game on Saturday.

1. Of the ten kids taken directly after Sheridan, only 3 have played more games.

2. Richmond were not contending for a premiership over that period.

3. The two other kids Richmond took in the national draft that year combined for only 11 games. Fremantle's other 4 selections have played a combined 153 games.

4. You're better off comparing Freo to other teams in a similar position. ie. Hawthorn and Sydney.
 
Total Games played by players born in 1994 or later:

Fremantle: 12
Hawthorn: 47
Sydney: 42
West Coast: 50
Richmond: 108
Western Bulldogs: 200+
Adelaide: 85
North Melbourne: 58

As I'm sure must be incredibly obvious to anyone who can read, Fremantle is a massive outlier in the competition in terms of how unwilling it is to play youth.
Yep, these are damning and quite scary stats for the future. I guess we will see in the years after this one if RTB has what it takes to rebuild/regenerate a team. I really think this year is the best chance we will get for a while, going to be an epic finals series.
 
I think you're confusing 2 different arguments.

Not using Sheridan as an example of youth. I was pointing out that plenty of 22 year olds have played more than 30 games. Players are mostly developed by the time they are 22. Sheridan is not a "young bloke" any more. He's close to the average age of an AFL player (around 24 years old is the average age of senior listed players in the AFL).

Fremantle have the oldest list in the AFL and the least amount of games for players born 1994 or later of any team in the AFL. 12 games total, 2 to Apeness and 8 to Alex Pearce. 1 each to Tanner Smith and Craig Moller in the St. Kilda tank game. And it's fair to say that Alex Pearce wouldn't have debuted at all yet were it not for the injuries to Dawson, Silvagni and Johnson.

Here's the rest of the top 8:

Total Games played by players born in 1994 or later:

Fremantle: 12
Hawthorn: 47
Sydney: 42
West Coast: 50
Richmond: 108
Western Bulldogs: 200+
Adelaide: 85
North Melbourne: 58

As I'm sure must be incredibly obvious to anyone who can read, Fremantle is a massive outlier in the competition in terms of how unwilling it is to play youth.

To get a more realistic measure, you'd need to do players born 1993 or later. That would add 183 games to Freo's tally.
 

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Sheridan has been productively involved in the business end of close matches quite a few times now..must have a pretty cool head about him. His last qtr was v v good on Saturday.
 
I think you're confusing 2 different arguments.

Not using Sheridan as an example of youth. I was pointing out that plenty of 22 year olds have played more than 30 games. Players are mostly developed by the time they are 22. Sheridan is not a "young bloke" any more. He's close to the average age of an AFL player (around 24 years old is the average age of senior listed players in the AFL).

Fremantle have the oldest list in the AFL and the least amount of games for players born 1994 or later of any team in the AFL. 12 games total, 2 to Apeness and 8 to Alex Pearce. 1 each to Tanner Smith and Craig Moller in the St. Kilda tank game. And it's fair to say that Alex Pearce wouldn't have debuted at all yet were it not for the injuries to Dawson, Silvagni and Johnson.

Here's the rest of the top 8:

Total Games played by players born in 1994 or later:

Fremantle: 12
Hawthorn: 47
Sydney: 42
West Coast: 50
Richmond: 108
Western Bulldogs: 200+
Adelaide: 85
North Melbourne: 58

As I'm sure must be incredibly obvious to anyone who can read, Fremantle is a massive outlier in the competition in terms of how unwilling it is to play youth.

I'll probably regret saying this but taking this year as a microcosm isn't really fair.

Maybe take teams that won their last premiership before starting to slide because their list was old, and your stats may look less alarming. I'm talking about teams like Brisbane and Geelong in the last years they won flags.

No doubt about it, this year is it so in a way its sort of an outlier year in itself. The rebuild will defiantly be on next year. I remember Ross himself (sorry I cant remember when) saying he would inject youth into the side if we were 8-8 or something by mid season. We aren't, we are 14-2.

We are a team having one last shot in my opinion. We have had a good retention rate of youth as well so it isn't like our youth up and leave like some teams. They are either spuds and get delisted or traded, or they are good and end up in the team eventually.
 
The thing is if you listen to any FFC player talk, they talk about how there is integrity in selection and you don't "jump the queue" because you are young. Everyone understands where they are at. There aren't disgruntled players.

Ross will play 1st and 2nd year kids when they bring more to the side than a seasoned AFL player. Then it is up to them to take their chance.
 
There aren't disgruntled players.
Can guarantee they're are at least five or six angry blokes at Freo. There are at every club. You've got 45 young men with egos, as well as those men playing under a coaching panel who give almost no chance to youngsters. I reckon there'd be a few miffed blokes.
 
Can guarantee they're are at least five or six angry blokes at Freo. There are at every club. You've got 45 young men with egos, as well as those men playing under a coaching panel who give almost no chance to youngsters. I reckon there'd be a few miffed blokes.
You can't guarantee shite. That's just dust blowing out of your rear.
 
Crozier wouldve been one of those, guaranteed. Hopefully Ballaz injury is the making of him.
Crozier would be the only one with a justifiable reason.

The rest would be quickly reminded of Mitch Thorp.
 

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