With the 2017 season now kicking off in under three weeks, every AFL side is beginning to ramp up preparations ahead of what should be an interesting season.

Teams will look to play near full strength sides in this weekend's final round of JLT Community Series matches, before having a week off leading into the opening round of the season.

Before round one each season, fans like to analyse each team's list and best 22 to determine which sides are ready to challenge for a premiership, but we've decided to enlist the help of Champion Data to look at how each side sits statistically at this stage of the year.

Hawthorn and West Coast are the only two sides with an average age of above 25, and those two sides also have the most experienced lists in terms of games played, with both clubs sitting on an average of 89 games.

The biggest differential between the two categories lies with GWS, as their average age of 24 years and 53 days sees them 12th on that list, but their average games played of 75 sees them fourth, meaning they've been able to retain a high amount of foundation players.

Average age:

Team Age
Hawthorn 25y 11d
West Coast 25y 5d
Fremantle 24y 342d
Geelong 24y 243d
Essendon 24y 202d
Richmond 24y 153d
Sydney 24y 90d
St Kilda 24y 77d
Western Bulldogs 24y 76d
Collingwood 24y 63d
Port Adelaide 24y 62d
GWS 24y 53d
Melbourne 24y 17d
North Melbourne 24y 360d
Adelaide 23y 323d
Carlton 23y 314d
Gold Coast 23y 304d
Brisbane 22y 337d

 

Average games played:

Team Games
West Coast 89
Hawthorn 89
Fremantle 78
GWS 75
Essendon 75
Port Adelaide 74
Collingwood 72
Richmond 70
Western Bulldogs 70
Sydney 69
Geelong 69
St Kilda 68
Melbourne 66
Adelaide 66
North Melbourne 65
Gold Coast 65
Carlton 58
Brisbane 49