EFL 2018: Steve Buckle to remain at Doncaster East in 2019
DONCASTER East mentor Steve Buckle will become the longest current serving EFL coach at one club next year after agreeing to extend his tenure at Zerbes Reserve into a sixth season.
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DONCASTER East mentor Steve Buckle will become the longest current serving EFL coach at one club next year after agreeing to extend his tenure at Zerbes Reserve into a sixth season.
Lions’ officials announced at the club’s best and fairest count on Friday night that Buckle would remain at the helm in 2019.
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Buckle took Doncaster East to its first premiership in 11 years last month and will be looking to take the club to Premier division for the first time in its history by 2020.
Buckle has taken the Lions to finals in the past four seasons, including three grand final appearances.
Doncaster East president Michael Gordon said Buckle’s success warranted the club offering him an extension.
“He’s certainly made a difference to our football club and we thought it was only appropriate he be offered the opportunity to continue on in 2019,” Gordon said.
“We had a bit of a track record there for a while where we turned coaches over regularly, nearly every year there for a while.
“Being able to develop the gameplan year in, year out and also to put games into the younger players to give us greater depth has been pretty important to our success.”
Gordon said one of Buckle’s priorities would be to improve the success in the club’s reserves and under-19s.
“While our senior side has been successful, we haven’t had as much success with our development side and under-19s,” he said.
“We need to understand our senior list will have some players in 2019 and 2020 maybe come to the end of their careers.
“We’ve really got to focus on the development of the homegrown players and assure we can get a much higher winning percentage in the development and under-19s.
“If you look across the EFL landscape, the really successful clubs, no matter what division they’re in, consistently have sides playing finals in all three grades.”
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