Ages Of Professional Rugby Players (2022/23)

I trawled through the team sheets for professional and international rugby teams to answer some questions like:

• What is the average age of a professional rugby player?
• How young are professional rugby players when they start their careers?
• What is the prime age of a rugby player?

Let’s look at these questions in order.

What Is The Average Age Of A Professional Rugby Player?

The average age of professional rugby players is twenty-seven years old.

This bar chart shows the average age at each rugby club in the English Premiership in the current season. Apart from a few outliers, the average is very consistent across all the professional clubs.

Here is the raw data represented in the chart:

Premiership Club	Average Age
Bath	27
Bristol Bears	27
Exeter Chiefs	25
Gloucester Warriors	27
Harlequins	27
Leicester Tigers	27
London Irish	26
Newcastle Falcons	28
Northampton Saints	27
Saracens	27
Wasps	27
Worcester Warriors	27

What about retirement?

Check out our article on the age of professional rugby players when they retire.

This varies by position, and you may be surprised as to who lasts longest. We’ve examined the ages at every club in the Premiership. We’ve also taken a look at some overseas numbers.

How Young Are Professional Rugby Players On Their First Contract?

The youngest professional rugby players tend to be twenty-one years of age.

This calculation is based on the average of the youngest players in each of the English Premiership clubs.

Here is the list for each club.

How Old Are England Rugby Players?

The average age of the squad for the Autumn Internationals of 2021 was twenty-six years of age.

We’ve crunched the numbers for the latest squad and the ages are getting younger! Check out the details in our article on England rugby squad ages for 2022.

I’ll mention here that the ages range from twenty years up to thirty-two years of age. You can see a full breakdown by player and position in the squad article.

How does this compare to other countries? Read the next section to find a comparison table of the top rugby countries in the world.

What Is The Prime Age Of A Rugby Player?

The prime years of a rugby player are between twenty-six and twenty-eight years of age. This range represents the most common ages of international rugby players from the top teams in the world.

How do we define the prime years of a rugby player? At Rugby Dome, we view this as when players are selected to play international matches for their country.

These players are the best of the best. But what are the average ages for national squads?

This bar chart shows the average for international players from the top tier countries. The figures are from 2021.

The table below also gives you the youngest and oldest ages in each squad.

Country	Average	Youngest	Oldest
England	25	20	32
Ireland	28	22	36
Scotland	26	20	31
Wales	27	19	36
France	25	22	31
Australia	26	21	33
New Zealand	27	20	35
South Africa	29	23	35

More Rugby Statistics

Have you ever looked at a giraffe-like lock and wondered about average heights in the sport? Check out our article on how tall are rugby players.

You’ve probably got an idea that players are getting beefier every decade. Our article on the strength of rugby players has statistics on the kind of weights these guys are bench-pressing.