Victorian Amateur Football Association: Donald McDonald brings AFL/VFL experience to Cardinals as football director
He’s a bit older and wiser these days, a “silver fox” he reckons, but Donald McDonald’s years in the VFL/AFL system are set to boost Old Scotch.
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Old Scotch will look to the experience of a seasoned campaigner as it negotiates the perilous step up from Premier B to the top flight this season.
AFL/VFL 150-gamer and VFL premiership coach Donald McDonald has signed on as the Cardinals’ football director and will assist first-year coach Mark Gnatt as the club makes its return to Premier following its runner-up finish last season.
“I’m a bit older and greyer these days,” McDonald laughed. “I’m a bit of a silver fox. We’ve appointed a young coach and I believe, with my experience, I could help him out.”
In a season to remember in 2019, the club’s seniors reached the grand final, while there were premiership wins for the reserves, women and under-19s and a finals berth for the thirds. But the step up to the VAFA’s top flight is always a challenging one and the Cardinals will be keen to soak up every ounce of experience the new football director can impart.
After a 155-game career with North Melbourne between 1982-92, McDonald captain/coached Werribee to a VFL premiership in 1993 before guiding Box Hill to its first top flight flag in 2001.
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After time as an assistant at Hawthorn, including a stint as caretaker coach prior to the appointment of Alastair Clarkson, he returned to Arden St where he has worked in a number of roles, including assistant-coach, chief of football and commercial relationships.
Most recently he coached EDFL’s Avondale Heights, stepping down at the end of last season with his match day responsibilities at North Melbourne increasing.
McDonald said friends with connections to Old Scotch and Scotch College had flagged the idea of a role with the Cardinals and Old Scotch president Tim Shearer was quickly on the phone.
“In terms of staff, there’s been a huge turnover,” McDonald said. “There’ll be a real injection of enthusiasm. We’re getting some great resources together and we’re really going to give it a crack.”
While there’s been a massive influx of AFL talent into the ranks of the ammos this season — Ryan Schoenmakers (Old Xaverians), Tom Boyd and Patrick Kerr (St Kevin’s), David Armitage and David Mirra (Collegians), Sam Dunell (Old Melburnians), Matt Dea (Uni Blacks) and Jay Kennedy-Harris (Uni Blues) — the Cardinals will look to improve from within this year.
“We probably haven’t been able to recruit any of the AFL guys this year,” McDonald said. “But we really want to breed and develop our own young guys.”
To that end the Cardinals are strengthening links with Scotch College and neighbouring junior club Camberwell Sharks in an effort to build a pathway from junior footy to the senior ranks.
McDonald said the Cardinals’ off-field strength had helped convince him to join the club.
“They’ve done a great job with the administration, led by Tim Shearer,” he said. “The rest of the committee has put in a huge amount of work and that’s really important to me, the way they run the club.”
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