Here’s a running tally of every AFL player that’s retiring in season 2024.
Adelaide champion Rory Sloane has called time on his decorated career.
The 34-year-old made the call after a second round of surgery on a detached retina earlier this year, threatening his long-term eyesight.
Sloane is the third player to make this decision pretty early into the new season, after two 20-year-olds with still plenty more top-line football to offer – from a physical standpoint – were medically retired.
Brain injury has claimed a second victim, Collingwood’s Nathan Murphy, 24. It follows news from February that Demons premiership midfielder Angus Brayshaw was calling it a day at 28.
Both players suffered gruesome head knocks in the 2023 AFL Finals series, with the Magpies defender being subbed out in the first half of the Grand Final after copping a nasty knock.
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Angus Brayshaw’s announcement a sobering start to 2024
On the eve of a new AFL season, the footy community has been hit hard by news Angus Brayshaw is medically retired.
The Demons star had done unbelievably well to turn things around after a string of brain injury issues earlier on in his career. But a Brayden Maynard bump that was felt for a large chunk of the 2023 Finals series has ultimately caught up with the 28-year-old.
It was one of the most controversial events of last season and the final chapter is jarring.
AFL’s retiring players in 2024
Listed in order of AFL games played
24 players – a star-studded list – hung up the boots in 2023 and you can be sure plenty more big names will call it quits throughout this year as well.
Rory Sloane (Adelaide Crows)
Debut 2009 | 255 games | 136 goals
Sloane just about did it all in AFL football, playing over 250 fearless games as a physical on-baller that made opposition players work for everything.
Tallying 136 career goals, Sloane could get forward and made scoreboard impact, also displaying impressive aerial prowess for a guy his height.
While falling short with Adelaide in the 2017 Grand Final, he stepped up on football’s biggest stages, claimed two Malcolm Blight Medals for club best-and-fairest, won a Showdown Medal in 2017 and also captained the side for several seasons too.
Angus Brayshaw (Melbourne Demons)
Debut 2015 | 167 games | 49 Goals
Perhaps too tough for his own good, midfielder Angus Brayshaw retires while still at the peak of his physical powers. He played nine seasons for Melbourne.
He managed a combined 15 games through 2016-17, battling concussion-related issues, before managing to force his way out the other side and compile some high class seasons. This culminated in playing an important role in the Dees’ drought-breaking premiership in 2021.
Brayshaw somewhat surprisingly finished third in the 2018 Brownlow Medal race, polling 21 votes — standing out by collecting a career-high 26 disposals per game and compiling 14 goals.
The Western Australian was taken third overall by the Demons in the 2014 Draft.
His absence in the 2024 season undoubtedly harms Melbourne’s chances of proving they’re in the premiership hunt after the club’s last two seasons ended with straight sets exits in September.
The news comes in the same week that drug trafficking allegations were made against teammate Joel Smith.
Nathan Murphy (Collingwood Magpies)
Debut 2018 | 57 games | 1 goal
While managing to cap off every player’s dream, claiming a premiership with the Pies in 2023, Murphy retires far too young, with still so much to offer, physically.
The 24-year-old defender suffered a nasty knock early in the GF against Brisbane, forcing the Pies to activate an early sub.
“I feel it is the right time and the right decision for me to hang up my footy boots,” he said in the statement.
“I love my football, but my priority is on my future and ensuring I live a full and healthy life.”
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