The age of retirement within the AFL is decreasing at a rapid rate. Players nearing and beyond the age of 30 are seen as past their prime and a liability to clubs.
The emergence of sport science and player monitoring is leading decisions to be made by scientific evidence. Whether science will always provide the right answer or not, athletes possess intangible qualities unmeasurable by GPS trackers or heat sensors.
Athletic traits such as talent, motivation and leadership may potentially be assessable through psychometric testing but can be proven wrong. Early retirements in the AFL are now frequently attributed to physical stress on the body or loss of desire to play.
Whether these are legitimate reasons is questionable, as there are a plethora of players told by their clubs they will be making way for younger players. This emergence of ‘youth policy’ to rebuild a club in a quick a time as possible is another trend bought upon courtesy of sports science.
Youth policy has yet to prove a drastic turnaround from ladder dweller into a premiership contender. Several clubs lack leadership and experience to guide youngsters which in a way, draws out their learning curves even more. Coaches have a role in guiding youngsters but at the end of the day, the players will be much closer with fellow teammates than their coach.
One example we can look at is Geelong.
In a year where they have won the premiership, they have also pumped a significant amount of games into youngsters. Chris Scott’s policy to play four players with fewer than 50 games experience has seen Mitch Duncan, Daniel Menzel, Alan Christensen, Trent West, Nathan Vardy and Taylor Hunt flourish playing alongside the professional Geelong unit.
Much praise has been attributed to recruiting manager Stephen Wells who has consistently delivered quality players with low draft picks, but perhaps the club itself has a lot more to do with the success than Wells.
With established leaders in Cameron Ling, Matthew Scarlett and Cameron Mooney driving youngsters to prepare and perform as they do, the culture of the club has the ability to turn an average player into a superstar.
When a highly credentialled player like Ling, or for argument’s sake Luke Power or Chad Cornes, retires while still in the top 20 players at the club, their influence on club culture and player mentoring is lost. This influence is not measurable by sport science and illustrates the importance of keeping professional veterans at the club for the sake of culture and learning.
Retirees this year including Ling (30), Leigh Brown (29), Chad Cornes (31), Dean Brogan (32), Luke Power (31), Brady Rawlings (30) and Ben Hudson (32) are all capable of playing on but most have made way for younger players. Most have plans to pursue careers beyond football while others will be joining Greater Western Sydney to play on.
It wasn’t that long ago that the retirement age of players was around 34, but now clubs refuse to take risks associated with older players by only offering players one year contracts after their 30th birthday.
If a veteran has a bad season or an injury-plagued one, this give clubs no responsibility to keep them at the club. It becomes a cut-throat business as Luke Power learned. That said, Power’s season was very respectable and he was still in the top handful of players at Brisbane.
Within the veteran fraternity, Dustin Fletcher (36), Simon Black (32), Adam Goodes (31), Matthew Scarlett (32) and Brent Harvey (33) are still in the best handful of players at their clubs. Just because the game has become faster, it does not mean older players cannot adapt. Cameron Ling, probably the slowest midfielder in the competition, still managed to keep Dane Swan to 20 touches in the grand final.
Although his retirement is highly admirable, few doubt Ling had more years in him.
Taking a look at other sports, a significant amount of ice hockey, baseball and American football players play well into their mid-thirties. In the golden age of football when physicality was at its peak, Michael Tuck played two years of reserves before 428 VFL games, retiring at 37.
Sport science is providing us with some fantastic statistics and information about players but its role in bringing down the age of retirement across the AFL is seeing decisions made too heavily based on scientific evidence at the expense of intangible qualities.
The_Wookie
Roar Guru
Raises a good point. Bradley was still one of Carltons best at 38 - and he played nearly 100 games (98) in the SANFL (when it was a top tier league from 1981 - 1985), and then went on to play another 375 games at the Blues in the VFL/AFL for a record of 473,and was named in the Port Adelaide and Carlton teams of the century. When Origin and Internationals are included he played more than 500 games. Along the way also playing cricket for South Australia and Victoria. (he also played nearly 30 night matches which the VFL/AFL dont count as senior matches) He retired in 2002 after 21 years at the top of his game.
Macca
Guest
Yeh. He went to Scotch College for years 11 and 12. My nephew played 1s for Caufield Grammar a few years back. When they played Scotch there was a fair bit of buzz around Rioli but when I watched him, he was a dirty player, far from what he is today. He hit blokes behind the play at any chance he got.
BigAl
Guest
I remember seeing recently that Riolli was attending an elite Melbourne school for at least his final years of schooling.
West Lakes Rick
Guest
Without sounding too discriminatory, one of the factors measured in psychometric testing is analysing how an individual behaves and thinks when they have much more money than they did growing up. This added freedom is what often brings players down as we have seen throughout the year with players establishing gambling and alcohol addictions. Obviously this isn't just restricted to the indigenous boys but the desire to take bigger risks in general sees player mentality shift away from football once they have established themselves. There was a really good interview with Heath Black about his post-football career where he just felt the need to be physical by getting into fights before he was held at gunpoint in Thailand. If a player manager is doing their job properly, they will minimise the risk with sound financial advice but club culture also has a role in maintaining football mentality.
BigAl
Guest
Interesting point about Rioli - it could be interesting to see just how long his star shines brightly ? Not to put too fine a point to it, but it is not uncommon for aboriginal players to burst on to the scene, star for 3 - 4 years and then quickly fade away. The Davies boys @ Melbourne/Essendon could well be the latest example.
West Lakes Rick
Guest
A couple of good points there Alfred. Psychometric testing is something that's coming more and more into the game, mostly during draft camps where clubs interview potential draftees but as you mentioned, can be proven wrong. A reliable source of mine informed me that Cyril Rioli was one of the worst players interviewed for psychometric testing during the 2007 AFL draft. This was one of the reason's he fell to pick 12. Against the psychometric testing a few of the recruiters insisted the Hawks still take him and it's turned out to be a master stroke. On the Luke Power note, the Lions handled the matter much better than the Crows did last year. By keeping Simon Black, they still maintain all the intangibles you mention which can partially be passed onto younger players. When you look at Adelaide, letting McLoud, Goodwin and Edwards all go in the same year really hurt the teams backline which also lost Nathan Bock. McLoud was really struggling with injury but the other two could have played on. Edwards was even best on ground in his final match! Had Edwards and Goodwin stayed on and maybe each playing 11 games, guys like Luke Thompson and Daniel Talia would have learned a lot more and develop faster.
johnnoo
Roar Pro
Craig Bradley anyone.
Macca
Guest
Michael Tuck's games record will never be broken. Personally, I'd have expected sport science to alter training schedules to maximize a players career. Adam Goodes said on Footy Classified the other week the reason he's still do good is because he's learned to train smarter. He doesn't even go to one of Sydney's training sessions.
The Cattery
Roar Guru
It's an interesting subject, and one which can be debated long and hard. Geelong showed this year that it is possible to balance an aging squad with the injection of youth. GWS will change the balance over the next two years, not only mopping up some much needed experience itself, but by taking the best of the younger talent, clubs will be forced to innovate, and that will mean trying to get an extra year out of aging players. And the fact that there are now two extra teams means that clubs will think a bit harder out of getting an extra year out of the 32 year old player who might otherwise retire. But we have to admit that there's no ideal age - some players have joints that are completely shot by the time they are aged 28, so you just never know how long you're going to last in this caper.