Hi there!
Wish your [football career] was longer?
Want to perform better [while playing football] deeper into your 30s?
Try this [football career] extender. It’s no gimmicks, no frills, just using your already god- given gifts in a different place to where you have used them before.
And always remember what you lack in youth, you more than make up for in experience!
We have two studies to show how well our program works from just this year!
Two players, both excellent midfield/forward types earlier in their careers, have taken up the program and it’s worked to great effect.
They have either removed themselves or been removed from the guts (of the game – get your head out of the gutter) and been sent to half back to try and extend their career, while utilising their foot-skills and footy nous to play quarterback for their teams.
The two players I’m talking about are Steele Sidebottom and Dayne Zorko.
Those two players are emblematic part of an effort by AFL coaches to swing the magnets around when things aren’t working to try and keep their good players playing good footy, even as their physical skills or suitedness to their best position, wane.
It’s been the most concerted and pronounced effort to solve problems that I remember. Coaches are changing roles, instead of just throwing up the hands and letting the player fade into obscurity or be dropped to the overall detriment of the team.
The democratic party could take some lessons from Craig McRae.
Returning to footy, look at Tom Stewart.
Stewart did the opposite of the career extension program and moved from half back to the centre of the ground. Early in the season Stewart was getting tagged and effectively played around by opposition coaches.
Oppositions made him the AFL equivalent of what the NFL does with a mesh defender. Instead of playing away from him and allowing him to read the game from a distance, they played everything in his immediate vicinity and forced Stewart into constant Sophie’s Choices.
Carlton did it the best in round 15. They tagged Stewart with Alex Cincotta but also played the entire game half a kick either in front of or behind Stewart. They constantly forced him to make decisions, and he was struggling to impact games as mental exhaustion clearly took a toll.
What did Chris Scott do? He threw who he knows to be an excellent player into the heart of the game to try and throw opposition teams off and force them to change their attacking game plan.
Tom Stewart did not attend a single centre bounce in season 2024 up until round 16. In the last two weeks he has attended 83% and 72% and then rotated with Mitch Duncan to take up his usual spot as a loose man in defence, though he probably played the role a little higher up the ground.
He lost none of his usual defensive impact as he has still had more than five intercept possessions in each game as well as more than three clearances and nine contested possessions.
Beyond Tom Stewart, Collingwood have flipped Jeremy Howe and Will Hoskin-Elliott to great effect. Carlton have swung Zac Williams, who was among the worst defenders in football early in the season, forward to even greater effect.
It’s happening all over the league.
But returning to the two at the crux of this piece, and the reason why I am so impressed by their coaches making this decision, is how perfectly their still silky skills suit the move to half back.
Sidebottom has always been a star, but mostly as a winger who could go inside on occasion. He’s always been a hard running, silky skilled player who just floated up and down the ground seldom looking even a bit tired. That changed a bit last season and early this season. He couldn’t move like he used to and was impacting games less, but his brain wasn’t yet cooked.
Craig McRae decided, instead of putting him out to pasture, to move him to half back as a kind of launch defender where he has been able to quarterback Collingwood games effectively and use his foot skills.
He is a key piece of Collingwood’s missile style rebound off half back as he’s so often the link between Collingwood’s midfielders getting the ball out the back of a stoppage, to getting the ball out to the runners. That is Sidebottom’s job, and it looks like he can do it for at least a year or two more if he wants to.
In turn, this season has been Sidebottom’s best ever for each of rebound 50s, kick percentage and metres per disposal. All the while he’s still launching about a score per game which is in line with his career average and is having his fifth best year for intercept possessions.
The other, more dramatic, change has been Zorko. After Kideon Coleman went down with a knee injury, Brisbane was searching for someone to replace his bounce off half back. And, like Stan and Peggy in Mad Men, the answer was right in front of them the whole time.
Zorko has been a revelation this season since he moved to half back.
Like Sidebottom, Zorko is integral to the way Brisbane plays. No team is more aggressive or more dangerous coming off half back than Brisbane as they sit second in scores from the back half. That is largely because of Zorko’s hyper aggressive kicking.
Asking him to kick down the wing this season has been like asking him to kill his mother or be faithful to his wife.
He’s disgusted at the prospect.
Instead, he has hunted the corridor and jumpstarted the speed element of Brisbane’s game that was lacking before the move was made. He has been one of the best in the AFL at that high degree of difficulty kick on the 45-degree angle that has been so effective at piercing zones this season.
It's not just what he’s bringing Brisbane, though, as Zorko is having his best non-shortened season since 2019 at age 35. He’s averaging a career high in rebound 50s, his fourth best metres gained season, his third best score launch season during his career low season for inside 50s, while also doing genuine defensive dirty work averaging 5 intercept possessions per game – the best of his career.
I figured his career was just about done last season and into this season, as I did with Sidebottom. But coaches have abided by the old adage that you never write off a champion. By redeploying star players who have lost something physically into positions where they can operate as the brain of the team, coaches have been able to extend the careers of their champions while also helping their teams.
The career extender has been working.
Try it yourself, Luke Parker?
Comments