Hawthorn and Collingwood will enter the 2019 season with the oldest lists in the AFL

It is lucky Collingwood is deep in the premiership sweet spot, because the Magpies will hit the 2019 season with one of the oldest lists in the competition. Where does your club rank? See the full list here.

Collingwood is deep in the premiership sweet spot, this year’s beaten Grand Finalists laden with experience and a large group of 25-29 year old stars.

Champion Data’s list analysis after last week’s national draft has Hawthorn as the AFL’s oldest and most experienced list.

In Round 1 its players will have an average age of 24.86 years and have played a league-high average of 80.53 games.

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But Collingwood comes in second in both categories, its players averaging 24.8 years and having played an average of 78.8 games of football.

The Pies, which lost a dramatic Grand Final after Dom Sheed’s late goal, have brought in ex-Lion Dayne Beams as well as defensive cover in Bulldogs premiership ruckman Jordan Roughead.

Not only do they have seven players over 30, they have 16 players in the ideal 25-29 year old age bracket.

AFL Age Ladder - Round 1, 2019

Club	Average Age	Rank	Average Games	Rank
Hawthorn	24.86	1	80.53	1
Collingwood	24.80	2	78.87	2
Port Adelaide	24.09	7	71.98	3
Adelaide Crows	24.76	3	71.39	4
Geelong Cats	24.34	4	71.13	5
Richmond	23.92	13	70.00	6
Sydney Swans	23.86	15	68.18	7
West Coast	24.00	9	67.82	8
North Melbourne	24.09	6	65.07	9
GWS Giants	23.94	12	61.18	10
Western Bulldogs	24.02	8	60.26	11
Fremantle	23.97	11	59.66	12
Melbourne	23.99	10	59.00	13
St Kilda	23.90	14	56.67	14
Carlton	23.55	16	56.66	15
Brisbane Lions	23.43	17	56.59	16
Essendon	24.11	5	55.38	17
Gold Coast	23.24	18	50.15	18

The plus-30s when Round 1 rolls around will be Daniel Wells, Lynden Dunn, Tyson Goldsack, Scott Pendlebury, Travis Varcoe, Chris Mayne and Levi Greenwood.

The best of their 25-29 age bracket include Beams, Steele Sidebottom, Mason Cox, Jeremy Howe, Taylor Adams, Jack Crisp and Josh Thomas.

With Jordan De Goey, Brayden Sier, Darcy Moore and Jaidyn Stephenson in the under-23 age bracket, the list has ample talent but also a wide age demographic which should keep its window open for some time.

Richmond’s shedding of experience to allow it the salary cap room to recruit Tom Lynch has dropped its age profile down to the sixth-youngest team in the competition.

The Tigers have lost players like Anthony Miles, Sam Lloyd, Corey Ellis, Ben Griffiths and Shaun Hampson, meaning the average age of their list is 23.92.

The Magpies will enter 2019 with the second most experienced list in the AFL. Picture: Nicole Garmston

But the Tigers have the sixth-most experience on their list, with their players having averaged 70 games leading into Round 1.

Gold Coast’s list is the youngest and least experienced, no surprise given they have lost an array of stars in the past several trade periods.

GWS has also lost valuable experience in recent years, meaning the premiership contenders are the seventh-youngest list in the AFL (average age 23.94 years).