So you're saying we're in the window?

So time for a rebuild………..oh wait

Max and Melksham have put us high yp on that list. Both have still got a lot to offer

We have a great bunch of kids and Coaches coming through…

Means nothing, the back to back premiers are high on the list

More crude stats. I guess the footy media needs to discuss something in the silly season. Weren't all the guys who got to 400 still playing pretty well? If a team had them all , on paper you might write it off. But not in reality. BTW losing an eight-time All-Australian will damage any team. But I'm not convinced Gawn is about to drop away, nor that the club are unaware we have some older players needing replacing in the next year or two.

15 minutes ago, 3KZ is Football said:

Max and Melksham have put us high yp on that list. Both have still got a lot to offer

We have a great bunch of kids and Coaches coming through…

Add Tmac and May who likely wont play much AFL next year.

We have a decent number of players between 18 and 23 but a bit skinny on the 24-28 bracket.

Given we are likely to lose Melksham (34), Campbell (34), May (33), T-mac (33) at the end of next year, our age demographic will start shifting significantly towards being youthful. I can see us taking a few more high end kids again given our draft hand and the impending tassie team. However we probably should target players in that 24-28 range for list balance and to supplement our list build in the coming years.

3 minutes ago, chookrat said:

Add Tmac and May who likely wont play much AFL next year.

Yes you are right. I forgot that has been retained. Good idea to have some Quality Backup pushing hard for selection.

Both those players will want to finish their careers in the Senior Team

I must add this.... One of the tricks of sensationalism / propaganda is to not start the horizontal axis at 0 on a graph . Tiny changes on the line on such a graph would look huge, even though a value has only gone up from 24 to 25 in 4 years or whatever.

Nearly every team's average age is 24.1 or higher. In other words, our average is only 5.4% higher than the fourth youngest team. It's time to panic! 🙄

Have they released each club's Spotify listening age average yet?

Yeh, one is Max Gawn who’s the best in the game. Who cares about age. Give me 10 of him and I’d be stoked.

1 hour ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

Have they released each club's Spotify listening age average yet?

You got yours today too, Rab?

14 minutes ago, Ghostwriter said:

You got yours today too, Rab?

Mine was 86…

Only 54 years off.

I’m old at heart.

These average age profiles are to superficial, what’s probably more important is the age of your best 22 and even more importantly your best 4 or 5, even those can be skewed by a couple of older players. Going over my own best 22 for next year 11 of the players were under 25, 8 30 and over and 3 25-29 which is when players are in there prime and that’s probably the more concerning thing about our our list and why expecting a bounce back next year is unrealistic. If you did similar analysis of other best 22 for each team I'm willing to bet we have more than most in that under 25 age bracket.

Edited 11 hours ago11 hr by Garbo

It's all a bit silly.

Campbell, McAdam, Johnson, Henderson all drop out of the numbers without affecting our starting team. But pick out best 4 veterans and toss them out, we are completely knotted.

Do that with Collingwood and ... as I noted the other day, they have more people in their top-10 best and fairest aged 33 and over than 23 and under. That's a struggle.

On the other hand, with Brisbane if you tighten it to best 22 and they still go alright, with Ashcroft, Ashcroft, Marhsall, Morris, Fletcher, Wilmot and Lohman all 22 and under. Thanks to an epic run of father-sons Brisbane were able to get the proverbial sit and push up another level. Their Ashcroft bounty was a bit like the timely injection of Selwood or Rioli, or indeed our Jackson-Pickett-Rivers draft which lifted us.

Brisbane also provide the highlight of how silly an age profile is for predicting the future; if you can bring in a steady stream of good draftees and elite 26 year old players and leaders from other clubs, who cares?

Buys stocks on the Gold Coast Suns.

Their list is scary good if there is one man that can bring them their first maiden cup its Dimma.

It shows how we have been the last few years. The players we delisted at the end of 2025 were either

1. Late picks/rookies who didnt develop into players.

2. Top up role players who contributed very little.

Our recruiting has great success in the first two rounds of the draft but has had little luck unearthing late gems.

Heading into 2026 we have retained a few senior players that would have been moved on if our list was in better shape.

I would feel better if we had our training facilities built and in a position to attract free agents in the next year or two.

10 hours ago, Ghostwriter said:

You got yours today too, Rab?

Yeah, 78 LOL. Don't know where it got that from but it's true I probably haven't listened to anything from this century.

12 hours ago, 3KZ is Football said:

Max and Melksham have put us high yp on that list. Both have still got a lot to offer

We have a great bunch of kids and Coaches coming through…

And TMac?

There was a follow up post on the socials outlying the break down in different age groups. I think we had 20 players under 22. I probably got that slightly wrong but it was something like that. I actually think we’ve got a great balance of youth and experience and along with the other off field changes can get back to being competitive on a regular basis.