For reference re: that argument on the lost 2020 year, our youngest ever debutant was 17.28 years at the time… and that was Zali Friswell, born on a 30th December, and that resulted in her being the youngest-ever draftee and then debutant in the AFLW.
Not saying it’s impossible – you can see below we’ve had a decent chuck of <18yo debutants, and so would other teams. Bridie Winbanks is by far our best candidate from the below but was only on 42 games when she finished last year at a year older than Tamsin.
Update: Gabby De Angelis is the current youngest 50-gamer in the modern VFLW, reaching that tally on 28 May this year. But as she lost 2020, an unbroken last seven games by Tamsin would get to 50 games at ~11 months younger.
If Tamsin stumbles, Winnie Laing could instead knock off her Saints teammate next year.
There are very few players nominally ahead of Tamsin that could beat her in future years… for those with at least a year’s worth of games already (14) and unreasonably assuming they play 18 games a year, there are just five players in the league ahead of Tamsin.
And two of them are Bombers! In order of their lead:
Tia Davidge (16 games this year, and she’s still 18)
Freya Taylor (17 games, Footscray)
Tahlia Meier (26 games, Footscray)
Chloe Prpic (14 games in her debut year)
Tannah Hurst (Pies)
Tylah Burn (Casey) and Reese Sutton are ahead of Crook but just outside the criteria above – they both had 13 games in their debut year.
If you scale back to 14 games a year, only Davidge and Taylor remain in front.
Note: there are a handful of players I can’t find a birthdate for, and I haven’t checked the players (apart from ours) who are on less than 13 career games.
Well, it was “only” a 9-47 loss this time… Sutton kicked the Cannon goal.
Under-ager Chloe Baker-West topped the Cannon tally with 31 disposals. At 16yo and across 7 games she averaged 34 disposals (call that average the equivalent of 50 in a men’s length game).
