TOPIC:

Recently raised again at the last Presidents meeting and clearly the WAAFL have not got this right.
They raised the Colts age a year ago to help pretty much just a few clubs.
The majority of A and B Grade clubs are all for having the age the same as WAFL colts.

What are your views guys on a personal level and also from your club point of view?

They should have left the colts age the way it was.

yolo swaggins wrote: They should have left the colts age the way it was.

Agree with your comments Yolo........20 isnt a colt

Agreed, 20 is too old. Might mean you keep a team on the park for a year but I don't think it helps when some clubs have a lot of 16-17 yr olds in their colts. We would have won a lot more games this year if we played all our Colts eligible players but made the decision to make sure all colts got a game and pushed the older kids up the grades.

Good point Dingo, it does create a big gap in ages, we had alot of 16 & 17 year olds in our colts side and they got rag dolled at times from clubs that played full teams of 20 year olds.

We will struggle to get some of these kids back next year as by seasons end they were sick of getting beaten up by older kids each week (I dont mean the fighting that happens in colts but its the bumps and bruised the younger kids cant handle)

Colts should be 17 & 18 like the AFL, at 19 and 20 is to old for colts or under age footy, if you can drink with the men its time to play with the men, not the boys....

Isn't the school finishing age changing in the next year or so (from 17 to 18). The WAFC is also brining junior footy into line with school years rather than ages so at best you would get 1 year out of a colts age player, if you then further change the age to be in line with WAFL colts you would have zero colts age players coming through the WAAFL system, excellent plan for the sustainability of the comp, but otherwise you all make very good points.

Dumbest decision by the WAAFL in years. Colts used to be 20 & under but got changed to 19 & under a number of years ago for good reason. Unfortunately a small number of under performing clubs managed to convince the League that the change in school age will have a negative effect on colts numbers in the next year or two.

The school age has changed, with kids now separated into school years by birthdays from July 1 - June 30 which means that half the kids in Year 12 will be turning 17 and the other will be turning 18. At worst we could possibly lose half a year of 18 year olds.

I don't reckon kids have changed that much since I was 18, but it was a while ago, and I can't see too many 18 years olds wanting to play Junior footy on a Sunday when their other 18 year olds mates are playing WAAFL colts on Saturday, having a few frothies at the club, and going out chasing some skirt....Year 12 sport (except for PSA) might as well be dead as I'm sure their Year 12, 17 year old mates would rather play ammo colts too. We knock back 17 year olds every year that can still play juniors so that our local junior clubs continue to have viable teams. If Year 12 footy does die as I suspect over the next few seasons then a return of age colts age to 19!

Clubs don't benefit in the long term from having 20 year olds playing colts , and the players get nothing out i
of being a big fish in a little pond. Most of the A Grade and B Grade clubs didn't play 20 year olds this year. Clubs that struggle to get colts need to look at what they're doing or more likely not doing to attract kids to their club.

happypants wrote: Isn't the school finishing age changing in the next year or so (from 17 to 18). The WAFC is also brining junior footy into line with school years rather than ages so at best you would get 1 year out of a colts age player, if you then further change the age to be in line with WAFL colts you would have zero colts age players coming through the WAAFL system, excellent plan for the sustainability of the comp, but otherwise you all make very good points.

Hi Happy, why change it to be based on school years????? Kids get kept down in school so because of the change in school age isnt a reason to change everything in footy for under aged groups

Hangover...missing the point I was making, when junior footy changes to be in line with the school age system there will be less colts available. Also interesting results from the waafl poll re all this. 65 clubs polled 39 responded of which 29 in favour of the increased age. Fairly convincing yes for sustaining the comp, looks like those on this forum are in the minority or haven't spent much time actually trying to run a club.

20 year old aint colts..we are a community based club and our juniors wanna keep playing together beyond junior footy..we played 5 juniors(level 2 transfer) this season and they had no problem playing against older blokes.
Young fellas these days are bigger,fitter and quicker and i reckon are more likely to get hurt playing against testosterone driven colts blokes.
We have encouraged our fellas to try out at Perth footy