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But aren't some 18 year olds in Year 12? Won't that limit the pool for WAAFL Colts or drain it from Youth comps? how will it help with player retention rather than causing a fight for the same kids?

most clubs struggle to get 17's sides up, that's a well known fact in the community as WAFL boundaries have merged to allow more then three teams in some zones.

Juniors should finish at 16, 17's and 18's should be colts, that way if they are in year 12 as 18 year olds they are still colts,

19 and above should be league, worked that way for years and we have only had trouble retaining juniors when colts age went to 20........

Pretty simple really, it wasn't broken yet they tried to fix it and we have not had the same numbers at 17's or colts since

I don't know when they changed age limits in WAAFL and I can't comment about how it worked for the WAAFL then.
I agree that numbers have fallen badly in the Year 12 (let's call it 17s) age bracket and that why the Conference System for Youth competitions was set up.
This was originally for 17s, 16s and 15s (ie Yr 10-12 as it now is) and also originally as "cross district" ie 2 "WAFL" District Football Development Councils (which are of course not controlled by the WAFL clubs), then for 15s-17s in conferences (made up of 3 DFDCs) some of them still struggle for teams.
Declining participation rates across Yr 10 to Yr 12 is alarming in Youth football.
Many clubs offer a Yr 10 team and then a team made up of Yr 11 and Yr 12 kids playing in the Yr 12 comp. Taking Yr 12s out of that would very likely see Yr 11 kids abandon football.
Numbers of WAAFL Colts participants have clearly declined even in the last 3 years and the Laurie Keen Comp has gone from WAAFL Colts now.
The problem, as I see it, is that we have to look at participation as a problem for all levels of Football. Without Juniors there is no Youth and there is no WAAFL Colts or WAFL Colts and so on. In my opinion we all have to work together to grow the player pool.

What was crazy in the weekend just gone was that in one case some players from WAFL dropped backed to Ammo's. These players were too old for WAFL colts but they went back and played Ammo colts.

It needs to go back to how it was back in the day! 12's,14's,16's at junior level and then move to a senior club after that with the colts age being eligible to 17,18yo and 19yo can play if they don't turn 19 until after the season finishes.

Thanks for joining in Danger.
I don't go far enough back in the WAAFL to know how that worked at the WAAFL level. I like the idea to return to the 2 year age bracket in Youth comps for lots of reasons but I think that up to Yr 9 (14s I think) the numbers seem reasonably managed as separate comps (ie Yr 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 8 and Yr 9) the real participation problem seems to hit at Yr 10 (which coincides with PSA becoming more serious - not saying that's causative of problems though).
the changing to school years across the comps causes some problems too because you always ended school and youth footy as a 17 y.o. and there seems to be a view that kids should play with their "school mates" rather than in their age group.

I agree its crazy having WAFL Senior listed players playing in WAAFL colts but that, I suspect, is more a selection issue than a competition age issue because obviously they'd be available for senior WAAFL selection and their clubs chose to play them in Colts.

Can someone tell me when the WAAFL colts age limit changed?

I believe it was 2013

Thanks M85.
So just after the time that cross-districts comps started for Youth, which I think started for some Districts around 2011. Did it coincide with declining WAAFL Colts numbers? I assumed from P/Hangover's comment that the declining participation rate had not hit the WAAFL by then.

School football should be a midweek competition and only run through term 2 of schooling.

That is basically how it is now Danger.

In my experience only State high School kids will double up (ie play club and school footy) and their comps are midweek and have only a short season.
PSA is a law unto itself and will play when they want but rarely allow good players to play in community Youth comps.

The point I was making about plating in school years applies to which team kids play in at their community JFCs