AFL debutants from 2000: Where are all 86 first gamers 25 years on?
In 2000, 86 young - and some not so young - men graced an AFL field for the first time. 25 years on, where are they now? Find out where all 86 are in 2025.
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They’d got through the Y2K bug scare and watched Brendan Fevola announce himself to the footy world on New Years Eve with 12 goals in the ‘Millenium Match’ at the MCG and then it was their turn to shine.
The 2000 AFL debutants were the newest AFL footballers for not just a new year, but a new decade, century and millennium.
In total 86 young men made their AFL debut through the year 2000 - a season that started in early March and concluded on the first weekend in September to make way for the Sydney Olympics.
Geelong’s Paul Chapman and Sydney’s Ryan O’Keefe would go on to win Norm Smith Medals while Jonathan Brown would win multiple premierships, and Matthew Pavlich has a wardrobe full of All Australian blazers across a 17 season career.
Others were one and done - taking the field on a single occasion before their AFL career came to an end.
Ruckman Steven Rode played a single game for Hawthorn in round 5 - just three days after his 20th birthday but was never seen at AFL level again. 25 years on, Rode is an investment banker in Adelaide.
Many footy fans remember the story of Ryan Pagan who debuted in round one for a Kangaroos team coached by his dad Denis fresh off the 1999 premiership. Pagan managed three AFL games - from round one to three and is now the owner of a real estate agency in the inner north of Melbourne with his old man.
And then there was Chad Davis who showed promise across 31 games over three years for St Kilda but is principally remembered for being the victim of a scrotum bite while playing for the Saints’ VFL affiliate Casey Scorpions in 2002. Davis is a personal trainer in bayside Melbourne.
But even the players with the longest careers are almost a decade retired, so where are those debutants from 2000 now, 25 years on?
Originally published as AFL debutants from 2000: Where are all 86 first gamers 25 years on?
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