Following a near finals finish in 2019 for both their Men’s and Women’s sides, plus the recruitment of club legend Kevin Collins and former Box Hill North coach Alan Chung, Donvale will be looking to go all the way in 2021.
After finishing fifth in its last season and now entering its third season in Division Three, the Magpie men will be determined to reach the next level and taste finals football in 2021.
Club legend Kevin Collins is back at the helm of the seniors this year, adding more power to their finals claims.
Kevin Collins in a previous tenure – Photo EFNL
Collins says that he’s excited to be back at the club where he won premierships in 1994 (Division Two) and 1996 (Division One).
“I’m really excited. It’s a real privilege to be asked back. This is my third stint there and I’ve just really enjoyed it. I feel lucky that I’ve been given the job.”
Collins has a lot of confidence that his senior squad has the potential to fill one of the four finals spots this year.
“I’m pretty confident that we’ll make up the numbers in the finals. We’ve got a good list, most of which are homegrown. Anything can happen, but we’ll give it our best effort.”
Collins also believes that the new recruits that Donvale have bought in will not only bring in good quality character, but also some depth and leadership.
“They’ll (the additions) certainly provide us with a lot more depth and a lot of direction in terms of leadership… We’ve got two players who haven’t played for two years who are ex best & fairest winners back so we feel we have a really good balance.”
The team already has great chemistry too, with nearly every player available joining in training sessions last year and doing some lockdown activities via zoom.
“We kept training, continuing to do everything by the book out of respect for the health department and our community,”
“Until we were told that we couldn’t train, we then met up on Zoom’s and we did some training programs, we did some competitions, including some that went for two weeks.”
Collins also believes that while there will be many challenges on the field, there will be some off-field challenges of note as well, given the chaotic nature of like in a post Covid-19 world.
“On the field I don’t really see too much of a challenge because the players are keen to embrace the competition and so they’re ready to go, but there’s still challenges to come, and we don’t know what’s around the corner”.
The women’s team could also be set for another big step this season with new coach Alan Chung arriving following its fifth placed finish back in 2019.
Donvale’s Women’s side is shaping up well for Season 2021 – Photo Donvale Women’s+Girls Football Facebook
Chung himself has said that the team is “ahead of where [they] thought we’d be at this part of the pre-season.”
When he first came to Donvale, he saw that their main strength was the quality of the women’s program, noting that there was continued support coming from the committee and many more.
“I was very lucky in that the strength of Donvale is they had a really formidable female program before I got there,”
“When I got there you can tell there was support from the committee, the coordinators, the senior players, etc.”
They have plenty of numbers too, with most players playing for both the social qualities team sport provides, whilst maintaining their competitive edge.
“We kind of have that balance of those who want to be the very best they want to be, where winning is within a lot of their goals and then still have that social aspect to provide that community feel and that development side as well.”
Chung’s main focus for his side is to improve their development over the course of the year, along with one unusual team challenge.
“A lot of our players probably have never bench pressed, so we’ve got a challenge where we want to lift a million kilograms, including setting a date for it already.”
The women’s side also kept in touch during lockdown, doing online activities not only with each other, but also with the Red Hill women’s team
“Coinciding with AFL finals we started a relationship with Red Hill Football Club.”
“We did a number of different virtual challenges such as push-ups day, running day and kick the football into the bin day.”
The men’s team will travel to Mt Waverley Reserve to face off against the Waverley Blues in the opening round of Division 3 (10th April), whilst the women’s is TBD.
