World Footy News

English-born Fergus Watts' recent delisting by St Kilda and David Rodan's delisting scare last year show just how fragile an AFL career can be. However, many players do bounce back.

Glancing upon the AFL lists, as we head into 2008, there is plenty to get excited about. As these players mature, they become role models for players growing up in their countries. The younger they are, the more potential for long successful AFL careers.

So we decided to look at the ages of some of the current crop of AFL "internationals" and encouragingly the signs are still youthful.

PLAYER	AGE	CURRENT AFL CLUB	COUNTRY OF BIRTH
Peter Bell	31	Fremantle	South Korea
Mal Michael	30	Essendon	Papua New Guinea
Ian Perrie	28	Adelaide	Zimbabwe
Trent Croad	27	Hawthorn	New Zealand
Kris Massie	27	Adelaide	Sweden
Tadhg Kennelly	26	Sydney	Ireland
David Rodan	24	Port Adelaide	Fiji
Aaron Edwards	23	North Melbourne	Samoa
Adam Campbell	22	Fremantle	New Zealand
Fergus Watts	22	St Kilda	England
Brad Moran	21	North Melbourne	England
Colm Begley	21	Brisbane	Ireland
Alipate Carlisle	20	Port Adelaide	Fiji
Heritier O'Brien	20	Collingwood	Brazil
Martin Clarke	19	Collingwood	Ireland
Kevin Dyas	19	Collingwood	Ireland (yet to debut)
Pierce Hanley	18	Brisbane	Ireland (yet to debut)
Brendan Murphy	18	Sydney	Ireland (yet to debut)
Luke van Rheenen	18	St Kilda	South Africa (yet to debut)

At the veteran end are players like Peter Bell and Mal Michael, who fortunately have committed to at least one year. Besides players like Trent Croad, 50% of all overseas born players in the AFL are under 25 with plenty left in the tank.

Collingwood has the best young talent, with all three of its overseas born players under 21 years old, whilst Adelaide has the most experienced overseas born players.

Ireland has produced by far the most and the youngest overseas-born players for the AFL. Note that this list does not include the Australian-born O'hAilpin brothers.

We could yet see more overseas born rookies come out of the 2008 AFL Draft.