With Collingwood about to field the oldest team in footy history, a trend of older AFL players is taking hold

Elite Australian Rules Football is older than it has been before. Not only in the sense that the game is now 160, more than the people who are playing it at the upper level.

This week, Collingwood is ready to name the team with the oldest average age from the first rebound of the VFL 128 years ago.

Directed by the veteran of 406 Scott Pendlebury games, the cakes remain thick in the containment of the Premier League despite the years in the biggest book. Even if Collingwood does not break the record this week, the mantle is taken at some point in this season.

And the team that Collingwood will take the record is not from the distant past of Footy, but of the Great Final of Geelong’s Grand Final.

In fact, the ten oldest teams in the history of VFL/AFL have arrived in the field since the 2020 season.

At the same time, Footy’s youth, and its future promise, has never been brighter.

The beginning of the 2025 season has seen the youngest players of the game impact the procedures more intensely than at any time in the last decade.

Last week, Essendon’s legend, Tim Watson, declared: “I think we have the greatest variety of young talents that we have had in the game and that we have seen.”

This year’s draft class was stuffed as one of the best in the year more than 30 years of draft history. They are the first days, but young people who have given a chance so far have had the realization of that turnover.

This dichotomy between young and old has spread in recent years. Young players receive an increasing part of the attention of media and fans. But players continue to play longer and more productive than ever.

Then, in the battle of the soccer ages, who wins?

Riot

Let’s look at that shocking harvest of AFL 2024 for a second.

At the beginning of the season, the outstanding performances have introduced this year’s draft harvest in a broader AFF multitude. Murphy Reid has captivated spectators in the west, while the best selection of the Draft, Sam Lalor, has been largely as announced for Richmond. Throughout the country, young talent has shown flashes of future promises, if not more.

But there are not many of those first year players who have arrived in the park still, only 16 so far.

All, 67 players in their first year of eligible Draft (which he turned 18 in 2024) were selected in the National Draft last year. They joined eight young people over 18 in the rookie draft and six rookies nominated for the academy. That group of 81 players represents about 10 percent of the League.

That is in line with the number of young people who generally make AFL lists in a given year. But the fact that you are on an AFL list does not mean you play AFL games. After all, 42 players sit on AFL lists (excluding rookies from category B), and only 23 adapt to play.

As a result, someone must get lost every week. Most of the time, those are children.

Most young players fight when they enter the league. Many are fresh from high school, and some are still finishing their studies.

Most are still physically developed and even grow more in the years that follow their writing. Compared to professional athletes who have dedicated themselves to crafts for years, it is often a long trip even for the highest young players.

Take the former number one selection of the Draft Jack Watts. When Melbourne chose Watts at the top of the 2008 Draft, the adolescent was seen as the potential savior for the suffering club. The weight of the club’s expectation, his fans and the media was enormous.

“Everything I did very well was expected, that is what you should do. Because if I played my best Footy game as an 18 -year -old and that is the standard, that is what you should do every week,” Watts told former teammate Russell Robertson in his podcast last year.

“Then, when you are not living (to expectations) … that was the most difficult for me I found.”

Charging…

Another number one selection echoed that feeling, but with a turn. For the giant star, Aaron Cadman, the greatest pressure was not the approach to external media but their own standards.

“It’s more pressure: I press myself. The green room last year.

“I would leave the track (thinking), ‘oh, friend, what are you doing? You are choosing one, you have to do this, you are better than this, you are better than that’, and then there is a hurry to be the best.”

If that is the pressure you feel to perform in children with the most likely to succeed, imagine that in the stripes, in a club away from their hometown.

Clubs are more willing to account for this development time than ever. Apparently, clubs are also willing to sit until they are ready, particularly in key positions around the ground.

There is something really in conventional wisdom that key position players take longer to develop. The highest players begin more slowly and take longer to reach their peak, although they often also maintain their performance for more than 30 years.

On the contrary, smaller players can often contribute immediately immediately.

This is also valid for the number of games played on each paper. Only two 19 -year -old specialists have played a game since 2019.

Accounting for development seems to be more factorized in lista management decisions as well. In what is considered a margin margin of the Feroat industry, it tends to be given next to young people.

There are many examples of late flowers and development stars that give the sides the hope that your crop draft only needs one or two years to really prosper.

Meanwhile, someone needs to play, and win, those games.

Helping the elderly

Do you remember that about aged AFL that never? There is good evidence to support that.

Only 12 years ago, players of 32 years or more represented less than one percent of all contributions of the AFL players points in the League.

Last year, that number had increased almost ten times. At the same time, the contribution of young players has dropped significantly.

The success of a growing number of older players and major teams, together with the advances in training and science of sports, has led more teams to throw the dice with more than 30 players.

The previous peaks in the average age of the player have coincided with important events, such as the end of the wars or the introduction of a more complete professionalism in the sport.

Instead, this current unit seems to come from another place.

Players like Pendlebury have focused on their preparation for the season, and recovery during it, to help boost their careers.

“I think that all recovery things are great, such as the sauna, the ice bath … The lots of people always ask: ‘Does that work?

“I will go today and make a little sauna in the ice bath. So maybe three small rotations, 15 (a) 20 (minutes) in the sauna, three or four minutes in the ice bath … I have been doing it for 20 years and they do not become easier, I feel that they really become colder.”

Compared to part -time players, and sometimes questionable preparation habits, the modern approach may be helping to stretch the races.

But this impulse could be more than recognizing that traditional ideas around the decreases of players could be out of the base.

Instead of getting rid of an aged player in their first fall, the teams seem more willing to evaluate in complete merits.

Regardless of the exact combination of reasons, Collingwood is ready to break a record for aging, and young talent this year is disabled to establish its own record.

Therefore, it may be true: football could be older, but young people are brighter than ever.