Out with the young and in with the old: A mid-year All-Australian team with a difference

Back in July of last year, Steele Sidebottom had a three-week stretch when his form dipped to a pedestrian level that would often spell the end for a 33-year-old.

Sidebottom couldn’t muster more than 14 disposals in games against Hawthorn, Richmond and Carlton.

Steele Sidebottom is enjoying some of the best form of his career.Credit: Getty Images

But the decision to deploy Sidebottom as a tagger on Sydney’s Errol Gulden in the very next game (round 22) was the beginning of Steele’s surge, as he shifted back into the centre square and re-discovered the touch and uncanny skills that have marked his 342 games for Collingwood.

Entering round 13, Sidebottom sits high in the AFL coaches’ award and has been sufficiently influential in the top team to earn a position in the mid-year all-Australian team.

Sidebottom (34), his teammate Jamie Elliott (32), Max Gawn (33) and Patrick Dangerfield (35) have all had profound impact on the competition in this year of the veteran.

Giant Jesse Hogan and Geelong’s Jeremy Cameron, meanwhile, have supplanted Carlton’s key forwards as the AFL’s best-performed tall forwards – perhaps Cameron has always been superior – despite birth certificates that say they’re on the wrong side of 30.

Sam Collins, surprisingly, turns 31 next weekend – having spent a year in the Werribee wilderness (VFL) before the Suns were able to jump the queue to sign him as a mature-aged concession in 2018. He’s done enough as an intercepting tall back to earn a place in the back six, alongside Lion Harris Andrews.

So, seven players aged 30-plus make this mid-year 22, as the AFL competition follows the trend of tennis – see Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams – and American team sports in which 35 is the new 30, and quarterbacks play until they can’t walk.

Selecting three of the forwards for this mid-year team – picked inclusive of round 12 performances (not this weekend’s games) – was easier than usual.

Cameron, Hogan, and Elliott (who has never been All-Australian) pick themselves and while some would push up Ben King, given his goal tally, Gold Coast’s key forward hasn’t shaped outcomes in the same way as Jezza and Jesse.

King’s teammate Ben Long, though, is another story.

Long, who has jagged 23 goals in his 10 games to round 12, has been a standout in a role that is not dissimilar to Elliott’s – as a forward who can lead and mark, but is no mug on the deck and assists others in scoring.

Dangerfield’s impact as an explosive aerial and ground ball mid-forward can’t be undersold, and if his hamstrings hold up, he should be headed for his record ninth All-Australian blazer.

Riley Thilthorpe, a Tom Lynch-style key forward, is named at centre half-forward, allowing me to pick Cameron as a flanker, which reflects his freaky ground-level abilities.

As the AFL’s headband act, Bailey Smith has been omnipresent, his every gesture captured by cameras and dissected by pundits and the public.

But, much as there is focus on his postings and postures, everyone must have cottoned on, so to speak, to the fact that Bailey’s been nearly the AFL’s peak midfielder – as the Brownlow odds suggest (he’s one of the favourites).

He has prospered mightily from Geelong’s decision to deploy him in the middle, rather than the wing or as a high half-forward.

So, @bazlenka – as he’s known by his Instagram idolaters – is in the centre, in every sense, in this mid-year side.

Hugh McCluggage isn’t a wingman in 2025, as he enjoys his best season yet, but I’ve conveniently picked him – and Sidebottom – on the wings that they’ve vacated this year; no specialist wingman (eg. Ollie Dempsey) has done enough to warrant selection to this point.

Gun midfielders, on the whole, have been less than dominant this year. Marcus Bontempelli missed the early games and could yet make the All-Australian side by season’s end.

Nick Daicos has been paramount to Collingwood winning some games, but has also been relatively subdued in three or four outings, having been more heavily tagged this year.

Still, the younger Daicos is so brilliant that he’s still up on the midfield leaderboard. I’ve picked him on the bench, behind Adelaide’s super skipper Jordan Dawson – still underrated in Victoria – and his Gold Coast counterpart Noah Anderson.

The numbers – in the form of the AFL’s official ratings (Champion Data) – would rank Anderson as the competition’s third-best performed player to round 12, behind only Bulldog Ed Richards and North’s version of “the Mountain” from Game of Thrones, Tristan Xerri.

St Kilda star Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera has a massive career decision looming.Credit: AFL Photos

Richards gets a game in this side, with Nick Daicos, on the bench. It’s conceivable that the rise of Ed Richards was a factor in Smith heading to Geelong, given the Dogs found it difficult to fit “the Bont”, Tom Liberatore, Richards and Bailey (plus Adam Treloar when fit) into the same centre square.

Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera is making noises about re-signing with the Saints, and for their sake, let’s hope that transpires. He’s a superb play-maker from half-back, with further growth ahead, and was accordingly picked at half-back in my team.

Bailey Dale, a rare half-back capable of garnering 40 disposals, is the other flanker in defence, edging out Fremantle’s Jordan Clark, Collingwood’s Josh Daicos, Lion veteran Dayne Zorko and others for that berth.

The consistent Lachie Ash of GWS fills the remaining running defender spot (notionally back pocket). Teammate Sam Taylor, whom Matthew Lloyd compared to Glen Jakovich for influence, was picked at centre half-back.

The key backs, as with the midfielders this year, haven’t been as outstanding as in years past. Jacob Weitering of Carlton has put up respectable numbers – and lord help the Blues if he went down – but hasn’t had a terrific season.

The smooth-moving Hugh McCluggage.Credit: AFL Photos

Possibly the stiffest to miss the defensive spots are St Kilda’s interceptor Cal Wilkie and Richmond’s perennial gun Nick Vlastuin. I judged that Gold Coast’s Collins had been marginally more effective, in a collectively superior defence.

North people will wonder why Xerri hasn’t made this team, since he is rated statistically better than Gawn (on Champion Data ratings) this year, and might view this as a plot against Shinboners.

Here’s major difference: Xerri, while heroic in ruck battle and adept at winning clearances, doesn’t fulfil one key performance indicator for ruckman and tall players – marking the footy (only 1.7 per game to round 12).

Luke Jackson is aerially superior and more versatile – as shown when he played as a tall midfielder against the Suns last weekend. He gets the second ruck slot on the bench.

The final interchange berth – there is no sub here – belongs to the spare midfielder, Freo’s Andrew Brayshaw, who isn’t as skilled as Bontempelli and Daicos, nor as powerful as Dangerfield, or as smooth-moving as McCluggage. But Brayshaw does two essentials exceptionally well – running and getting the footy.

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