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Lyon: “Staggering” injury toll on young players is an issue
SEN • July 8th, 2025 1:11 pm
Garry Lyon is staggered by the amount of young players missing AFL games through injury due to the demands of the modern game.
Lyon says he has an issue with the demands that the game puts on first and second-year draftees in particular.
Read Lyon's thoughts below:
“We narrow the size of lists, which means we then put more pressure on the actual list you've got. We lengthen the game. All we've done in recent times is make the season longer,” Lyon said on SEN Breakfast.
“So what's your answer? It started on the 7th of March. The season started on the 7th of March.
“We're now in the middle of July, we've got 15 weeks still for the season to finish. 15 weeks!
“We've got these kids who are coming in and we make lists smaller. So the poor old Tigers, who are in a situation where they've got to play their kids - I’m not saying they're under pressure to play Sam Lalor - but in an ideal world, Sam Lalor doesn't play last week and might only play two times for the rest of the year.
“I’m looking at Melbourne's future. There's Harvey Langford and Xavier Lindsay. I don't want them to play every game for the rest of this year.
“Alix Tauru, who I think is the most exciting young player I've seen emerge for a long time, had to be held back because he had a back injury. So he gets more time to prepare.
“I spoke to a senior coach about this - they draft these kids out of under-18 or school footy. They de-load them, so they get them into the system, and you're not lifting heavy weights to prepare yourself for a big season.
“They de-load so you're just all about technique to make sure that (you build good habits), so they haven't got that basis.
“They're drafted in October. They do a few weeks, the Christmas break comes around, they get weeks off, they come back, within six weeks they want them to play senior footy, and they want them to play over a 25-week period.”
Staggering numbers
“The amount of games missed to injury by top 30 draft picks.
“In 2021 it was 147, in 2022 it was 251, in 2023 it was 379.
“And last year it was 447 games missed, and at the moment we're at 383 games of kids who have missed through injury.
“So this is just my opinion - you don't have to agree with it. I look at Geelong, who have been the smartest team in the competition - when's the last time you saw an 18-year-old kid play for Geelong?
“Connor O'Sullivan played one game last year for the Cats, and then they said, ‘no, no, no, you're not ready’. So he didn't play again (until this year).
“Ollie Dempsey won the NAB Rising Star for Geelong in his third year.”
Cats in unique position
Co-host Tim Watson pointed out that Geelong is in a very different position to a lot of other teams, giving them the luxury to debut some of their youngster at a later stage.
“But they've worked their way into a unique position though because of the success they've had over a long period of time now, and the type of team that they've been building,” said Watson.
“I would think that they've looked at this, and they've looked at the productivity that they can get out of early draft picks, but then their philosophy within the club has been different to a lot of other clubs.
“They haven't gone back for a reset or a rebuild or call it what you like. They've been able to continue to top up and they've been able to manage it beautifully.
“They haven't relied like Richmond on a complete rebuild or reset, go and get all the kids and play the kids and try and get as much time and experience into them as quickly as they possibly can.”
Limited numbers on lists
Lyon continued: “Not to the detriment of their careers.
“This is the problem with limited numbers on lists.
“I understand where Richmond are at. They'll turn around and say, ‘Hey, we ain't got any choice’. So they'll play another debutant at some stage.
“But you don't want Sam Lalor playing 20 games this year. You want him playing 250 games down the track.
“I’ve got every club's top picks over the last five years.
“The list of players that have missed through injuries after they've got drafted is staggering.
“Do you know much about Josh Goater? Drafted in 2021, missed five games, then he missed 22, then he missed 15 games. So he's the first or second-round pick.
“Taylor Goad hadn't played much footy. These kids that have come through and missing footy is unbelievable.
“And what's our answer? The AFL will go, ‘we're going to make the season longer, we're going to make it more demanding, and we're going to take numbers off the playing list’.”
What about Daicos, Sheezel, Selwood etc.?
“There are exceptions. There's no problem about that, and I understand that.
“But we need to limit how much game time they should have in their first and second years and try and facilitate it that way, because you don't want this list I've got in my hand…
“Zach Reid, who's just come in… the Will Ashcroft knee, Nik Cox, Denver Grainger-Barras, Josh Gibcus, Josh Goater, Brayden George, Angus Sheldrick, Elijah Hewett, these are all kids.”
Longer season not the answer
“I spoke to a senior AFL coach who said this - The answer from the AFL to all these questions is to put more weeks into the season and build more pressure on these kids.
“I would ideally love to see a 20 or 22-week season, but it's about managing loads for these kids, essentially is where I'm getting to.
“In an ideal world, percentages of time you can play, senior games, try to take it out of the hands of the teams themselves.
“But you've got list sizes which compromise your ability to do that. If we did that to Essendon and said, you can only play first-year players 65-75 per cent of the season, and second-year players 85 per cent, then that might mean they have to take Isaac Kako out of the side this week, and they just might not end up with enough players.
“Again, what's the answer from the AFL? Oh, let's make the season longer.
“And guess what? I'll tell you what else we'll do in this game that you've just described as the hardest physical game in the world - let's make the quarters longer as well.
“Let's leave them out there longer because of all this nonsense, bull dust reviews, wait for a boundary umpire, for all that nonsense.
“So, season gets longer, weeks get longer, you're in training longer, and the damn games are going longer.
“And you wonder why you these first and second-year players are missing so many games.”
