EFNL 2024: Triple Donvale premiership coach Kevin Collins calls time as club great Tony Weeks takes the helm

One of the game’s most decorated suburban senior coaches has called time – but as one club great departs the post at the Eastern outfit, another fills the void.

EFNL: Outgoing Donvale coach Kevin Collins celebrates with the 2023 Division 3 cup. Picture: Davis Harrigan

The curtain has fallen on one of the Eastern league’s most decorated senior coaching careers.

Donvale stalwart Kevin Collins has called time at the Division 3 power, bringing an end to a triple-premiership-winning partnership stretching two stints decades apart.

Raising the cup with the Vales in the league’s second tier in 1994, Collins also led the club to glory over juggernaut Vermont in the 1996 top-flight decider.

Returning to the helm ahead of 2020, the master coach took his side to within a kick of a premiership in Division 3 in ’22 before saluting a third crown in ’23.

He took the club on the league’s second-longest winning streak during this time – 31 matches – dropping just one game this season before a shock two-point grand final loss to Surrey Park.

And among long stints as a junior coach at the Vales, he oversaw the under-19s flag in 2017.

But as one club great departs the post, another arrives, with Collins’ 2024 assistant and former captain in the 1990s, Tony Weeks, taking on the top job.

Weeks holds the record for best and fairests at Donvale, and returns to the senior mentor role after last serving as the club’s captain-coach in 1993.

Collins, a schoolteacher, said the succession plan had been some time in the making.

“I’m retiring from teaching at the end of the year – it was planted last season,” Collins said, who also served on the Box Hill VFL coaching panel from 2014 to ‘16.

“I spoke to ‘Weeksy’ last season to get him on board to hopefully hand it over.

“I informed (club president) John (Giles) before the finals that this would be my last year.

“It’s worked out well and I’ll still go and watch them.”

Donvale’s Kevin Collins has retired from senior coaching. Picture: Davis Harrigan

Collins said he planned to spend more time with family in retirement, including watching son Sam – a dual best-and-fairest-winning key defender with the Gold Coast Suns – play footy.

“This is it,” Collins said of his senior coaching career.

“When you’ve been in footy and teaching as long as I have, you’re tuned in on a timeline – you can’t do anything in November-December because you’re training, and the end of January on you’re three nights a week and Saturday … everything’s routine that you can’t really change.”

Kevin Collins plans to watch more of his son, Gold Coast defender Sam, play next season.(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Collins lamented this year’s heartbreaking last-gasp defeat to Surrey Park in the Division 3 decider felt like “one that got away”.

“It does,” he said.

“We led for 98 per cent of the game and we gave away a couple of down-fields … we knew how we had to beat them and in the last 15 minutes we didn’t comply.

“To their (Surrey Park’s) credit, they were able to take it from defence and kick a couple of goals and that’s the way it goes in a final.

“In finals, one thing can be the telling factor … it’s just attention to detail and ticking every box, and they ticked it off a bit better than us in the last 10 minutes.

“The premiership would’ve been good but just to get them up into second division is what we were hoping to do – that was my goal. That was disappointing, but we (won the premiership) the year before and didn’t go up.

“But life goes on.”

Despite the glistening CV of premiership cups and medals, Collins said his proudest achievement as a coach was off the field.

“It’s been good mixing with younger people in a footy club and having some impact and input into their development as people, more than footy,” he said.

“That’s what’s been strong about Donvale – they’ve got a really strong culture driven by the players and supporters. The kids down there are really solid citizens.”

And on the field? Stunning a formidable Vermont outfit by 43 points for the 1996 top-division flag stands out for Collins.

Vermont lost just 24 matches for the 1990s decade.

Running ladder-topping heavy favourites Waverley Blues to two points in the 2022 Division 3 grand final also rates a mention, despite the result.

“’96 was the one where we were given no chance – but that would’ve been surpassed by 2022 when we were given no chance against Waverley Blues had we won it,” Collins said.

“Some of the best efforts have been when we weren’t given a chance and we almost won.

“But in ’96 to then win that as complete underdogs was fantastic, coming up from second division … I like them all – they’ve all been character-building.”

There are no regrets as the decades-long career comes to a close.

“I’ve enjoyed it – I wouldn’t have traded anything.”