2014 EFL Pre-Season Wiki | Tomorrow: Surrey Park
by Maddi Vantarakis (@madvan_8)
THE Doncaster Football Club seems to have Division 3 covered, winning flags in 2011 and, most recently, 2013.
Now the Sharks find themselves again in Division 2 – but they’re going to have to perform better than the last time they featured in this division.
Senior coach Andrew Tranquilli says the boys had a tough time of it in 2012, but they are ready for the step-up this season. He believes last year was about reconciling the issues the club had from Division 2 and re-grouping.
Winning the Division 3 trophy means the Sharks get to tackle it again.
“Going into 2013 was about understanding what went wrong,” he said.
“It wasn’t so much the quality of the players. In all honesty we just had a year from hell with injury. What it did expose was our depth.”
Tranquilli says Doncaster has recruited well over the pre-season, with the aim of increasing its depth, strength and experience in players.
Collingwood premiership player Ben Johnson leads these changes.
“Ben himself is just going to bring experience and control around the midfield point of view,” Tranquilli said.
“He brings confidence to the likes of [Chris] Annakis and [Marc] Peduto. As much as they can handle it themselves, having that calibre of player supporting them is going to give them that extra five to 10 growth in maturity.
“So we’ve really gone out and broadened our depth with 23 to 27-year-olds. Not only are we still sort of a young list, but we’re a bit older, a bit more mature and a bit more physical.”
Doncaster captain Luke Parker says the focus over the pre-season has been on recruitment, strength and conditioning, gearing his boys up for tight and solid contests in Division 2.
“We’ve now figured out enough that we’ve got the depth that we believe we require to be competitive in Division 2,” he said.
“The difference between Division 2 has been that you get a good game every single week. Anyone on their given day in Division 2 can knock anyone off.”
According to Parker the expectation for 2014 is to be consistent and competitive.
“AT [Tranquilli] and I have sat down and spoken closely about our main objective. We want to come out fierce, we want to come out strong and we want to play like – and be – a consistent football club,” he said.
“We want to be respected by our peers, throughout everyone that we come up against. We want to apply pressure in every single game.
“If we can do that and if we can stick to our game plan and our structures, and continue our close friendships and bonds that we have at our club, that could lead us to a finals series.”
Tranquilli said aspiring to finish in finals is a given, but most importantly, he wants to make his mark this time round.
“We really just want to make sure that teams that played us two years ago realise that we are competitive, that we are a good team,” he said.
“Every game we come across, the opposition will know that they’ve played Doncaster in a fair and competitive way.”
Both Tranquilli and Parker highlighted the “tightness” across the Division leading into this season, agreeing that challenges are going to come from every direction.
“Division 2’s got that nostalgia about it that it’s nearly the premier division by the quality across every team,” Tranquilli said.
“It’s one of those things that, on any day, bottom can beat top. Come the end of the 18 games and you’ve just missed finals, it could just be by percentage. You could be in a relegation position and you’re only one game out of the finals.
“It’s one of those divisions where if you’re not on your game on game day, if you’re not switched on, it’ll come bite you in the backside.”
Doncaster begins its redemption campaign in Division 2 against the freshly relegated East Burwood at East Burwood Reserve on 5 April.