Age and experience stats - Richmond second youngest

[one-eyed]

Plough often talks about the lack of experience in our team. Here's the stats from the weekend of average age, average no. of games, height, weight and no. of players in each games played category.

Team            Age    Games     Hgt      Wgt    >150  100-149   50-99  <50

Sydney         26.5    123.6     187.6    88.5      7   6   5    4
Essendon      26.1    119.2     188.4    87.5     8    6   1    7
Adelaide        26.3    108.4     187.5    87.4     6    5   4    7
Fremantle       25.9    106.5     187.6   90.3     7    5   3    7
Melbourne      25.6    101.4     187.6   87.3     6    5   2    9
Bulldogs        24.12   101.2     186.9   86.5    5   3   7    7
Kangaroos     25.1     97.8      186.6   88.7     6    4   4    8
West Coast    24.4     90.2     187.7    87.8     4    7   4     7
St Kilda          25.4     89.9     187.0    87.5    5    4   6    7
Geelong         24.9     88.1     188.6    90.6     3    7   5    7
Collingwood    24.6     87.3     186.6   86.8     4    7   1    10
Port Adel       24.11    85.5     187.3   88.0     6    2   5    9
Carlton          24.5     84.0      188.5   88.8    3    4   6    9
Hawthorn       24.1     73.6     185.9   89.7     3    2    7   10
Richmond      23.5     61.0     186.3   85.8     3    1    4   14
Brisbane       23.2     57.2     188.3    87.0     3    2   1   16

[Gordon Bennett]

Very interesting ststs, Mt. Thanks. No wonder we're struggling. Apart from Brisbane the differences are significant.

Maybe the media should stop saying Hawthorn are "the youngest team" etc.

14 out of 22 less than 50 games!

[julzqld]

Some people have been jumping up and down saying "play the kids, play the kids" which is all very well but then after the games there's always the comment about lack of experience.  Can't have your cake and eat it as well.

[the_boy_jake]

We all know that we are a young side. The stats are not really surprising.

You have to think a bit more qualitatively and ask yourself where you think the high water mark will be with the current setup.

Not even Jackstar would dispute that this team will improve, but where we end up is a matter for reasoned debate.

If things continue the way they are I can not see this side developing into a top 4 side. Top 10 yes, 5th to 8th, probably, but not top 4. I don't believe the current coaching setup has managed to improve the skills of the experienced players or more importantly the youngsters anywhere near as much as say Leigh Matthews and the Brisbane coaches have with their young guys (I KNOW there are $$$ differences between our setup and the Lions, but we just have to set the bar higher, that is a reality). Despite throwing all of our eggs in the one basket with the draft with regards to pacy outside types we only sporadically play fast free flowing footy and to my eyes we still struggle to find ways into the forward 50.

On top of this the accountability I was hoping for is not there - we still have blokes like Tivendale and Hall on the list. If there is an economic reason (I don't understand the complexities of the draft/list very well at all), please let me know, but these guys are not up to it, never have been, and never will be. Whats more they don't provide any leadership for the young blokes whatsoever. Can we develop a culture where being an average footballer puts you in the queue at Centrelink please!

For what its worth, I don't know if Wallace has a clue or not. He can be very convincing at times and look and sound deluded at other times. I don't think a change in coach will be very productive mainly for financial reasons. At the end of 2009 Wallace will be up for renewal and I think that even if we have a young list at that point in time, if we are not yet challenging for September action it might be the right time for a change. Sometimes you need to shake things up to avoid a culture of failure becoming permanent in the young blokes. So we need to look at our plan for 2009 and make sure that we are still planning for the future and avoiding the kinds of short-term things spud did to save his arze. Review all our assistant positions and make the new deals VERY performance based - get Miller to set some goals for the long term and term the contracts to reward the staff if we score 100+ plus consistently with a young side.