Who would win???

[Stripes]

To see where we are at as a club I thought it might be interesting to speculate whether we are still heavily reliant upon older players or we are being more driven by our talented youth.

Here is two teams made up of 'older' player - 24 + and 'younger' players - 23 or less. The first thing to note is that I couldn't make up a full team using players 24+ as there is only 15 and two of them (Polak and Petts) are unlikely to be play this year due to injury. The second thing to note is that the 'younger' team could have included many other players I have placed in the 'others' category including Graham, Gourdis, Putt etc which you may feel would be better in the team over choices I made - feel free to comment.

What I was hoping for people to do is to first look at the teams as a whole and make a judgement which team would win if they played off against each other today and then look at each area of the ground (ie backs, mids, forward etc) and judge which team had the stronger players in those parts of the field.

                                                  Older Team
                                               24 years old or more

                                      B         Silvester      Moore       Newman

                                      HB       King         Bowden       McMahon

                                      C         Cousins        Tuck          Coughlan

                                      HF       Johnson       Pettifier      Brown       

                                      F         Polak            Richo            ???

                                      Foll -  Simmonds
               

                                                  Younger Team
                                                  23 years old or less

                                B         Raines        Thursfield           Hislop

                                HB      Rance         McGuane          Tambling

                                C        Foley           Thomson           Deledio

                                HF      Morton         Riewoldt           Connors       

                                 F        Edwards       Hughes             Schulz

                                Foll -   Pattison        Cotchin             Jackson

                                Int -    Vickery        Polo        Collins         JON

Others – Graham,  Nahas,  Gourdis,  Putt,   Post,  Browne, Gilligan




Stripes

[mightytiges]

The smartalec answer is the younger guys because they've got 3 extra guys on the field and 4 more to rotate off the bench  .

You would have to even up the sides in any case as apart from Simmo in the ruck and Richo (who would match up on him?), the younger guys - Foley, Lids, Cotch, etc - would beat the oldies out of the middle over 4 quarters especially as they've had a few years getting use to reading the opposition ruckmen. Apart from Tucky the other oldies could only be used in short bursts in the guts while Cogs and Cuz are unknowns in their state. The younger side has a better structure obviously with the numbers they have and you would have to question the accountability of the oldies side with King, Joel, Jordie and Petts in their side.

[Chuck17]

Very interesting Stripes.

I would say the youngsters and mainly because of the way they are developing as full of go, go,go, plus as MT said the oldies have a few too many unaccountable playing types for my liking.

The only thing I am not sure on is Richo's match up, I would have Moore but he is in the same side as Richo.  That is where I see the real strength of the oldies, FF and FB, Moore would have Clever on toast and I would try Rance on Richo to start and good luck to the kid.

And on the sides below I would love to see a Lids/Cuz match up

[Stripes]

Interesting. When I first concieved of this thread I thought most people would rate the older team much higher than the younger side. You would think by now that if the older/more experienced players were not superior to the younger players they would be moved on yet that doesn't seem to be the case...?

I believe the older sides midfield would beat the younger team due as much to size and experience as anything else but I take your point MT regarding four quarters of play. The younger side would be much quicker though an in form Cousins would be the exception to the rule here. Simmonds would have it all over our other rucks and feed the older mids such as an injury free Cogs.

Richo would beat any of our current defenders one on one but as it used to be with him in our forwardline the younger defenders would more than likely double or even triple team him. Browny hasn't the pace or lateral movement to lead as well as he once did but if Cogs, Tucky and Cuzz could get it into his hands he still knows how to kick a goal from anywhere. All the same I think the younger defenders would beat the older forwardline through team work and because 2 great forwards aren't as good as 4 good ones...as past history has shown us.

The younger forwards v older defenders would be fascinating to watch. Moore v Hughes, Bowden v Riewoldt, Newman v Morton etc would all extremely interesting to see how it unfolds. I would actually give it to the younger forwards because I don't rate Kingy, Bowden or Silvester.

Stripes

[mightytiges]

You may get your wish Stripes as we usually have one intra-club game prior to the NAB Cup - Probables vs Possibles. It wouldn't be exactly oldies vs youngies especially with Polak and Petts missing but the midfield may be not too different in the centre to what you have if Cuz, Cogs and Tuck are up against Lids, Foley and Cotch.

What makes the oldies hard to judge is they have a number ifs on them. You'd expect the younger guys to have ifs as they are still developing and maturing but not so many of the oldies. How Cuz and Cogs return in 2009 would have a massive say in who would win out of the centre. At their peak they would do a lot of damage against the younger guys as you say Stripes but anything significantly less than that and the youngies would win comfortably. Against Richo you maybe would have to let Lukey run with him on the wing and then try to double team and force Richo wide whenever he was pushed forward. With Buddy in both games last season we forced him wide and to his wrong side.

[bushranger]

I was gunna say the youngen's as well as they have more to their team to.
But I will say the oldies as they have got it all upstairs now.
Thought I would say it would be close in the end.