roughly....our current list...(CURRENT- that means minus holland, bode, weetra, yze, white, neitz)...and also means without all our new draftees....

it is 22.44 years old

Which would make us the youngest (Carlton were the youngest list at the start of the pre-season, Feb '08, with an average age of 22.8 years).

we all know what we need... a couple more Forward Key Position players (to go with quality young backmen we already have), a ruckman (bearing in mind we have about 5 young ones on the list already), and one or two more quality mids. That's 5 gaps... we have about 6 quality young players at the moment. Another 11 plus depth needed from the others. Players who are worthy of being in a top side.

We must take Watts (looks a certainty) first.

What about Seaby for the ruck? Report today says he's definitely leaving WC and he's 24 and already a premiership player.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...from=public_rss

"Youngest list" is a meaningless statistic unless you can make some sensible observations about the age of players in the core or on the fringe. You can have a young list, but still have lots of your young players playing in the seconds. And some teams "average ages" will be skewed by things like the number of rookies they take.

It's one thing to have a spread of players in the 26-30 age group ... you can retire 2-3 every year over five years without much effect. It's another thing to have a team that still has many core players around 30 ... all retire over a short period, their skills and physical ability diminish more rapidly, and you lose a lot of experience at once.

"Youngest list" is a meaningless statistic unless you can make some sensible observations about the age of players in the core or on the fringe. You can have a young list, but still have lots of your young players playing in the seconds. And some teams "average ages" will be skewed by things like the number of rookies they take.

It's one thing to have a spread of players in the 26-30 age group ... you can retire 2-3 every year over five years without much effect. It's another thing to have a team that still has many core players around 30 ... all retire over a short period, their skills and physical ability diminish more rapidly, and you lose a lot of experience at once.

I agree. I remember looking a few years ago and the difference between the 'youngest' and 'oldest' lists in terms of average age was about 1.5 years. It's completely irrelevant, not to mention misleading.

It's the weighting of your 'best 22' in terms of age and experience groups that provides a much more interesting and useful statistic IMO. Nobody seems to ever really be bothered analysing this though.

"Youngest list" is a meaningless statistic unless you can make some sensible observations about the age of players in the core or on the fringe. You can have a young list, but still have lots of your young players playing in the seconds. And some teams "average ages" will be skewed by things like the number of rookies they take.

It's one thing to have a spread of players in the 26-30 age group ... you can retire 2-3 every year over five years without much effect. It's another thing to have a team that still has many core players around 30 ... all retire over a short period, their skills and physical ability diminish more rapidly, and you lose a lot of experience at once.

Absolutely right, what's been rattling around in my mind is what stats or criteria best compare Hawthorn against Geelong. Dappa Dan sort-of described the essential differences best, relative youth is with the Hawks whereas the Cats have an older core group who will be beyond their peak in a few years time.

MFC is of course heading towards the young end of the scale. Except as DD put it, our young group is currently competing for #1 draft picks while the Hawks are competing and winning flags. But our relative youth and some impressive potential is one encouragement from a season to otherwise forget.