Champion Data: Once a death sentence for an AFL career, 30 year olds are now driving premiership tilts

That includes footy players. The oldest team in VFL/AFL history won the premiership last year and, while they are older again, there’s no reason Geelong can’t repeat the magic in 2023.

Champion Data analyses the trends of players once they hit the age of 30.

Age shall not weary the midfield

With 200 games as qualification, rating points at each age broken down by position suggests players are continuing to excel into their 30s.

The need for speed on the wing or as a mid-forward sees an earlier drop-off of players (not many make it past 31 in these positions). But elsewhere, in the midfield and in key post positions where strength and/or endurance are paramount, players in their mid-30s are doing so with minimal drop-off in output.

This rings true with the evolution of football conditioning, where endurance has become the key component.

We really shouldn’t be surprised. The marathon is typically dominated by athletes in their 30s and last year dual Olympic Gold medallist Eliud Kipchoge broke the men’s marathon world record just weeks shy of his 38th birthday.

In football terms, 37-year-old, 2022-retiree David Mundy is the poster boy. Never the quickest player on the field, he thrived after the age of 30 as a big bodied midfielder with endurance, whose football smarts did not desert him.

The cream rises

Of course, the counterpoint to the argument is that only the champions keep going into their 30s, thus helping to keep ratings averages high.

This is true, but it also raises the question whether we pension off “merely good” players too quickly because of preconceived notions of age.

When Jeremy Cameron celebrates his birthday on April 1, Geelong will have thirteen players over the age of 30. If they weren’t winning, this would seem extraordinary.

We’ve all been told that a player’s influence metaphorically falls off a cliff after 30. But Champion Data rankings for the eleven Cats who were over 30 last season suggest that, while output decreases, it is only marginally so.

The “Moneyball phrase” is often misappropriated but, in Geelong’s case, it rings true. They’ve made decisions on all of these players based on output, not age.

How many clubs would have tried to prise Rhys Stanley, Zac Tuohy or Gary Rohan from Geelong over the past two years?

As good as Isaac Smith was at Hawthorn, there weren’t too many clubs lining up to recruit him as a 32 year old going into the 2021 season. Two seasons later, he was best on ground in a grand final win.

An athlete playing at a certain level at 32 years old will usually be cheaper than the same output from a 23 year old, meaning Geelong has been able to retain or recruit older players at manageable cap terms.

Accordingly, this has allowed them to add more pieces to the puzzle that mitigate the supposed lack of speed in an older list.

Grey power

Here’s the final secret when it comes to older players.

They win.

Champion Data figures from 1999 to 2022 show that, once the average age of your team ticks across 25, you win more games than you lose.

Of course, it’s no secret that experienced teams win, but the window of winning a premiership as an experienced team has been seen as narrow.

Historically, we’ve been conditioned to retiring players as soon as they fall short of their previous glories. However, as Geelong has shown, older players’ output remains valuable even if they are not performing at their peak past 30.

This mirrors trends across world sports and means that the premiership window is widening if you’re prepared to play for now and not be rattled by the future. If others don’t want older, quality players, top up with them and keep your premiership drive alive longer.

Doubters were writing off Geelong this time last year.

Nobody is prepared to do it this time around.

The Cats may not win it all in 2023, but the AFL might have now realised that quality footy life does not end at 30.