So Noah Anderson will be the youngest captain in the AFL in 2025, and the youngest in SUNS history! So what?

Born February 17, 2001 and going into his sixth season, the 104-game midfielder will be 19 days beyond his 24^th birthday when he leads his side out against Essendon in Opening Round at People First Stadium on Saturday, March 8.

He’ll be 11 months younger than Port Adelaide’s Connor Rozee, 23 months younger than West Coast’s Oscar Allen, and three years younger than North Melbourne’s Jy Simpkin.

At the other end of the scale, he’ll be almost 11 years younger than Geelong’s Patrick Dangerfield, and 10 years younger than Melbourne’s Max Gawn.

But among 89 AFL club captains since the SUNS were ‘born’ in 2011, 12 have been younger, and 20 have been less experienced than the 2023 and 2024 All-Australian squad member, who will assume the SUNS top job from 2022-24 co-captains Touk Miller and Jarrod Witts.

It’s all part of the time-proven adage … if you’re the best man for the job, you’re old enough.

And it’s not as if Anderson has had anything but an exemplary introduction to the AFL.

Pick #2 in the 2019 National Draft behind long-time best mate and SUNS leadership group member, Matt Rowell, he has played more AFL games than each member of the Class of 2019 except Melbourne’s pick #12 Kysaiah Pickett. And Pickett’s 106 games includes seven finals.

The only other 100-gamers from the 2019 draft have been Fremantle pick #8 Caleb Serong (103), GWS pick #4 Lachie Ash (101), Geelong rookie pick #12 Brad Close (101) and Melbourne pick #32 Trent Rivers (100).

Anderson’s 2568 possessions heads the 2436 of GWS pick #10 Tom Green, with Sydney pick #39 Chad Warner (1882) next on the list.

Only Serong, with 63 Brownlow Medal votes, has more than Anderson’s 58 votes – and he’s played in 16 more wins. Green (53), Warner (52) and Rowell (50) are the only others to top the half century.

And, having finished 6^th-8^th-2^nd-1^st-5^th in the SUNS best & fairest in his first five years, Anderson is one of only two 2019 draftees with five top-10 finishes to his credit. Serong has gone 9^th-4^th-3^rd-1^st-1^st.

Anderson will take the distinction of being the SUNS’ youngest captain from 2017-18 co-captain Tom Lynch. He was 24 years, 145 days when he led the club for the first time officially in 2017 in partnership with Steven May, who was 25 years, 74 days.

The other four SUNS skippers were 26 – Miller was 26 years, 26 days in 2022, David Swallow 26/125 and Witts 26/192 in 2019, and inaugural skipper Gary Ablett 26/323 in 2011.

Witts (80), May (88) and Lynch (102) had played fewer games than Anderson (104). Swallow (117) and Miller (138) were marginally ahead, leaving only Ablett (192) with significantly more AFL experience when he took charge of the League’s 17^th club.

The youngest AFL captain of the SUNS’ era in the AFL was Jack Trengove, who was 20 years 211 days when he shared the Melbourne captaincy with Jack Grimes for the first time in 2012. Grimes was 22 years 325 days old.

Trengove (37 games) and Grimes (32 games) had not even played two full seasons in the AFL, yet they were half a season ahead of the most inexperienced captain of the past 15 years – inaugural GWS co-captain Phil Davis.

Recruited from Adelaide, a 21-year-old Davis had played only 18 games before he joined ex-Bulldog Callan Ward in leading the Giants in their first game in 2012. Ward had played 60 games.

For the sake of this exercise, pre-existing captains at the time the SUNS joined the AFL are considered at the age and experience they were when they first took on the job.

Others below 100 games before assuming their club captaincy in the SUNS era Melbourne’s Jack Viney (70), St Kilda’s Nick Riewoldt (75), Adelaide’s Rory Sloane (78), Witts (80), Carlton’s Patrick Cripps (81), Wes Coast’s Allen (82) and Fremantle’s Alex Pearce (84).

Trent Cotchin, later to lead Richmond to the 2017-19-20 premierships, had played only 86 games before given the #1 job by then coach Damien Hardwick, and the Western Bulldogs’ Easton Wood had played only 89 games when he took over from injured Bulldogs captain Robert Murphy in the Dogs’ premiership year of 2016.

Other first-time captains below 100 games since 2011 were Carlton’s Sam Docherty (93), Essendon’s Jobe Watson (94), Collingwood’s 2010 premiership skipper Nick Maxwell (95), St Kilda’s Jack Steele (97) and Richmond’s Toby Nankervis (98) and West Coast co-captain Eric McKenzie (99).

Brisbane’s Tom Rockliff (101) had also played fewer games than Anderson.

Behind 20-year-old Trengove on the list of the youngest first-time captains since 2011 have been Davis and Ward (21), Riewoldt, Dylan Grimes, Viney and Cotchin (22), Jack Grimes, Geelong premiership skipper Joel Selwood (23), Patrick Dangerfield (23), Cripps and Sloane (24).

Dangerfield, who has captained two clubs in the SUNS era, was just short of his 24^th birthday when he and Rory Sloane took over the Adelaide helm in 2014 from the injured Nathan Van Berlo. And he was just short of his 33^rd birthday when he succeeded Selwood at Geelong.

Eleven others from the 2011-24 era who were just older than Anderson but still only 24 when they assumed the captaincy were Port’s Rozee, Ollie Wines and Travis Boak, Bulldogs’ Marcus Bontempelli, Carlton’s Chris Judd, Adelaide’s Van Berlo and Taylor Walker, Essendon’s Dyson Heppell, Sydney’s Callum Mills and North Melbourne’s Andrew Swallow – brother of David.

The oldest first-time AFL captain of the SUNS era was the Bulldogs’ Murphy (32/299) in 2015.

Next oldest was Hawthorn’s Ben McEvoy at 31/252 in 2021, while AFL games record-holder Brent Harvey was 30/319 when he took over the North Melbourne captaincy in 2009.

Others 30-plus have been Essendon’s Brendon Goddard (30/311), Fremantle’s David Mundy (30/215), Richmond’s Dylan Grimes (30/244), Hawthorn’s Jarryd Roughead (30/61) and Ben Stratton (30/22), and Melbourne’s Brad Green (30/11).

At 29 years were Geelong’s Cameron Ling (29/27), Brisbane’s Dayne Zorko (29/32) and Lachie Neale (29/298), Sydney’s Adam Goodes (29/79), West Coast’s Matt Priddis (29/2) and Luke Shuey (29/294).

With the ever-dependable benefit of hindsight, it is remarkable to think that in their final years at the Oakleigh Chargers in 2019, Anderson and Rowell played under co-captains Dylan Williams and Trent Bianco.

Williams was pick #23 in the 2019 Draft to Port Adelaide and has played 22 games, and Bianco, pick #45 to Collingwood, was delisted at the end of 2023 after 23 games.

Yet Anderson will be the seventh AFL captain to come out of the powerhouse Chargers organisation after Luke Power (GWS), Marc Murphy (Carlton), Luke Shuey (West Coast), Toby Greene (GWS), Jack Viney (Melbourne) and Darcy Moore (Collingwood).

And there are two more potential captains-in-waiting – Nick Daicos (Collingwood) and Sam Darcy (Bulldogs).