After the Sharks loss today there were the usual calls for new blood, sweeping away the older player. But is there any evidence to support this?
Firstly here are the average ages of our S15 teams in their last completed matches:
Cheetahs 26 years / 140 days
Bulls 26 years / 84 days
Sharks 26 years/ 11 days
Stormers 25 years/ 292 days
Lions 24 years / 340 days.
The first thing that strikes one is the three franchizes regarded as having somewhat succesful S 15s are the oldest three.
Secondly all teams cluster around 26 years, with the one exception being the Lions at 25 years....and they are probably our weakest team. Is there anything in their play to suggest the year of additional youth is making them more formidable?
Thirdly the Stormers and Cheetahs both have old backlines. The vaunted Cheetahs backline actually averages 27 years and 331 days.....28 years to all intents and purposes. If Goosen were back that might drop a bit, but would still be above 27. So how come our most dynamic backline is our oldest? Could experience and vision be more important than young legs....up to a point.
And fourthly the Stormers have a young pack averaging 24 years and 149 days..probably the youngest of any of the packs or backlines. Could this be the core of their problem.
So from this admittedly simplistic view, one might say an old backline doesn't seem to hurt you, but a young pack does. One might also say our older teams tend to do better than the Lions, who are sufficiently younger to speculate about performance effects.
Not conclusive proof by any means, but enough to make this the going in hypothesis.
