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happypants wrote: 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.

Happypants, you're assuming that the change in school age will have a negative effect on the number of kids playing colts. At worst we lose half a year of 18 year olds to play colts in the former 19 years and under age colts system. The apparent solution is to put the age up to include a full year of 20 year olds.
Our club believes that, no 18 year olds are going to want to play Year 12 footy and will choose to play ammo colts. The really good ones will be in the WAFL colts system along with the really good 17 year olds. This will place a huge amount of pressure on junior clubs to be able to field a Year 12 team.

Our junior club affiliates have indicated that they believe that they will not be able to sustain a Year 12 teams long term and that they will be faced with a few options including merging Year 12 teams between clubs, which then poses problems with being able to sustain a viable Year 12 competition with minimal teams playing against each other. Our junior clubs currently play in a cross district competition from West Perth, Subiaco and Claremont to have enough Year 12 teams for a viable competition. The second option is to scrap their Year 12 teams and push them into our WAAFL colts. If this happens, we face having half a year of 17 year olds and a full year of 18, 19 and 20 year olds eligible to play colts. 3 and a half years of kids in colts is ridiculous. We'd have to field 3-4 colts sides to cater for these numbers and then struggle to get enough oval space for training and games, coaches, umpires and other support staff.

2013 saw a half year of kids come through with the change in school age and chose not to play 20 year olds in our colts and had no issues fielding two teams each week. We had 28 20 year olds that could have played last year.

In regards to your comment regarding those on this forum being in the minority maybe we are just better informed and haven't got caught up in the whole Chicken Little 'the sky is falling' that some clubs seemed to have been trapped into.

I just don't see why this is complicated and is such a big issue.
When I grew up football was Under 10's/12's/14's/16's and then you go play colts which was under 18's.
As soon as you are 19 years old you play senior footy.

Why is something so simple so hard to achieve these days? Who are the morons trying to complicate something so simple?

Not to mention how any young bloke that is 19 or 20 wants to play colts footy still is a really amazing. Why don't young people want to be men? They are men at the bar, men when they are driving? Men at work? But want to be a little baby at footy.

Just make it the same as the WAFL, bloody rocket science.

Well said!

Redlegs, well thought out point however you're assuming that these kids that have spent possibly 12 years together at school and playing junior footy will suddenly decide they would rather play ammos with half their mates and that their parents will support them finishing school while spending their weekend's boozing at an ammo club.

The issue will not effect clubs in areas where there's plenty of kids as they are always going to have plenty of kids. In areas that don't have lots of kids to choose from they will be hardest hit. If your club has the bonus of extra colts aged players because the year shifts your not suddenly getting an influx of extra kids so the burden on your facilities will be the same and if your club and coaches choose to play kids in whatever grade they think they are ready for that's their call. There have been many occasions when kids under 18 (or colts age in general) have played senior footy at club because they are both physically and skill wise able to make the grade.