Eastern Football League: Long awaited promotion on hold but Doncaster East gets to work
After last year’s premiership win, Doncaster East finally earned its long-awaited promotion to the EFL’s top flight. Then came the COVID-19 season delay. Though frustrated, the Lions haven’t stopped preparing for the season return.
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Doncaster East senior coach Steve Buckle described the impact of the COVID-19 season delay as “gut-wrenching” for his club.
“I’m devastated by it, obviously by what’s happening worldwide but talking solely about our footy club, we were so excited and looking forward to the challenge ahead,” he said.
“The players are devastated by it as well, we’ve just got to hold our breath, keep everything crossed and hope the season gets off the ground.”
The Lions are set to field a host of ex-AFL names this season with Maverick Weller, Zac Clarke and Sam Rowe joining two-time premiership defender Simon White.
The club missed promotion to the EFNL’s top tier following grand final defeats in 2015 and 2017 and when it did win the second tier flag in 2018 there was no promotion because of the league’s competition restructure.
With last season’s premiership win, the Lions finally earned the step up.
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Buckle is taking a cautious approach ahead of the club’s first foray into top-tier football, entrusting his players to continue individual training from a club-approved plan.
“We’ve set out a pretty tough running program for them and asked them to do that two or three times a week as well as keep active themselves so go and shoot some hoops, go and have a kick or grab a mate if you’re willing to,” the dual premiership coach said.
“It could all change at any stage and they know that if they let themselves go, there goes our window – it could close pretty quick on us and we could find ourselves relegated if it goes to a nine-game season or something like that.”
The club’s preparation has seen group work discarded in favour of individual training as Buckle takes no risks with the players’ health.
“Initially we wanted to go small groups but the more information that came out was saying that that shouldn’t even be done,” Buckle said.
“We’d be absolutely filthy and dirty on ourselves if we had small groups of five or 10 and say go do some running and have a kick and then all of a sudden one of them gets it and then that whole group falls down. We’d be shot.
“We’ve entrusted them to do it on an individual basis and we’ve got full trust in that.”
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