The world has gone so soft: AFL to no longer reveal player weights, declares it inappropriate

[MrMahatma]

Do trolls really say "She weighs xkg, therefore she's fat"? I mean, anyone with eyes can tell there are a number of AFLW (and AFL at times) players carrying a bit of extra baggage. I'm not sure keeping their weights a secret is gonna change anything.

[Hotdog60]

Come on don't bring Jake into this.

[GVGjr]

Do trolls really say "She weighs xkg, therefore she's fat"? I mean, anyone with eyes can tell there are a number of AFLW (and AFL at times) players carrying a bit of extra baggage. I'm not sure keeping their weights a secret is gonna change anything.

Based on some experiences here and on other social sites the actual weight for players means very little but a couple of years back during the covid impacted seasons a lot of comments were being made on which players were in peppermint patty conditions.
It was certainly more a scanned by the eyes type assessment than people saying a player as 85kg and he should try and get down to 80.
I rarely read things like that.

Ironically at a function I talked to Weightman about that the skin-fold test was stopped and he laughed that it had been stopped but seemed to think some players were happy about it. He said the club can still catch out players who don't come back in good condition so it was no big deal.

Not having the players weight as available information on footy records etc for supporters is not much of an issue.

[D Mitchell]

T...safe place.

I'm sure many others will join me in hating this sort of nonsense.l Full body contact sport without pads ? These blokes are footballers. They've been playing in schools and footy clubs for years. Tom Boyd is right up there with Sutton, Whitten because he turned it on when it counted. This rubbish diminishes Tom.

[chef]

Am i the only one who doesnt care or need to know how much a footballer weighs?

[GVGjr]

Am i the only one who doesnt care or need to know how much a footballer weighs?

I think you are well within the majority Chef.

[Grantysghost]

Am i the only one who doesnt care or need to know how much a footballer weighs?

Hey hey we are drumming up off season talking points here get off the fence!

[The Adelaide Connection]

You can't. Because that will unleash a new broadside aimed at the girls.

Why do we care anyway? Maybe Kane should create a 'who can squat what weight' database and that way he could say:

"Charlie Curnow can squat 9% more than Jake Lever...he should take him to the goal-square"...

OR, probably with more relevance he could say "Based on my 300-games of experience, I would really encourage Michael Voss to send Charlie Curnow to the goal-square. Why would he play Lever in space? He's got a clear size advantage...".

This is really not that big a deal is it?

Great take. Time to move forward and in ten years time we will look back and wonder why anyone cared.

[macca]

I just think its funny every preseason to hear about Stringers body condition . Its a shame its one less parameter to pickout.

[Twodogs]

If this is to stop social media trolls then I can see this being counter productive. Trolls don't need facts in order to push their views and prejudices, in fact the lack of accurate figures plays to their advantage because now they can speculate and their speculation becomes fact in their eyes.

[Grantysghost]

Do trolls really say "She weighs xkg, therefore she's fat"? I mean, anyone with eyes can tell there are a number of AFLW (and AFL at times) players carrying a bit of extra baggage. I'm not sure keeping their weights a secret is gonna change anything.

Yes but now the AFL can say, we didn't do anything to add to it.
Optics, not solutions.

[jeemak]

Being sat in front of a VSFL U/18 coach and assistant coach (both ex-VFL players) and told as a sixteen year old that I was being cut solely due to skin folds at the last cut after practice matches (one of which I got BOG by a mile) didn't have a great impact on my self esteem.

I had come off a broken arm and dislocated shoulder and could just start pre-Christmas training in time. I came back well too heavy, got a fair chunk of the weight off but didn't have the discipline to keep it going that way and went back out over the Christmas/ NY break, unfortunately.

Not putting kids through skin folds is a good move. Not naming player weights is fine by me.

[Grantysghost]

Being sat in front of a VSFL U/18 coach and assistant coach (both ex-VFL players) and told as a sixteen year old that I was being cut solely due to skin folds at the last cut after practice matches (one of which I got BOG by a mile) didn't have a great impact on my self esteem.

I had come off a broken arm and dislocated shoulder and could just start pre-Christmas training in time. I came back well too heavy, got a fair chunk of the weight off but didn't have the discipline to keep it going that way and went back out over the Christmas/ NY break, unfortunately.

Not putting kids through skin folds is a good move. Not naming player weights is fine by me.

That's shizen Jee what a bunch of knob heads. We are all genetically different, height, weight, hair; who cares!
I'm not in any way bothered by not disclosing weight, more how they come to a decision that almost insinuates weight shouldn't be spoken about because it's somehow a bad thing.

[GVGjr]

Being sat in front of a VSFL U/18 coach and assistant coach (both ex-VFL players) and told as a sixteen year old that I was being cut solely due to skin folds at the last cut after practice matches (one of which I got BOG by a mile) didn't have a great impact on my self esteem.

I had come off a broken arm and dislocated shoulder and could just start pre-Christmas training in time. I came back well too heavy, got a fair chunk of the weight off but didn't have the discipline to keep it going that way and went back out over the Christmas/ NY break, unfortunately.

Not putting kids through skin folds is a good move. Not naming player weights is fine by me.

You would hope coaches would be a lot better than that. Sounds more like a convenient excuse to explain why they were cutting you.
Most people are more sensitive now to the impacts for what is said. Gotta say I feel a bit sorry for the 16yo Jee to be subjected to something like that.

[jeemak]

You would hope coaches would be a lot better than that. Sounds more like a convenient excuse to explain why they were cutting you.
Most people are more sensitive now to the impacts for what is said. Gotta say I feel a bit sorry for the 16yo Jee to be subjected to something like that.

I've often thought of that and also considered that these guys thought they were helping me....which in a way I think they were (direct feedback hurts, but at least it's direct). At that point they were halving the numbers, I was bottom age and didn't have a father breathing down their necks or a family member who was in football administration at the local level........like some others did.

But also, at that time in that competition it was pretty brutal on the back of your Ray Jordan's etc. ruling the roost not long before. And the coach in particular was a very weird black and white authoritarian guy.

Not looking for sympathy, it's all good now. I've got heaps of insecurities that starve that particular one of oxygen now I'm all grown up.