Busy propagating those seeds for Dookie United Football Club this season was Daniel Burness and, unsurprisingly, he’s ready to push the envelope again next year as senior coach.
But this time he’ll have some help.
Imposing tall Jack Threlfall made waves in the middle for Dookie in this year’s Kyabram District League season and, as vice-president Pat McMullan was pleased to announce, will join Burness on the coaching panel.
“Jack has proven himself as a player and has spoken about his aspirations to get into coaching football — he’s coached basketball and the likes previously,” McMullan said.
“We think we’re a good club to provide opportunities for blokes who want to get into those positions.
“We’ll provide him with plenty of support and he’s obviously got the support of the playing group already and has established himself as a leader on the field. It should be a smooth transition.”
Under the tutelage of Burness, Dookie stormed out to win five of its six opening games in 2021.
That head of steam eventually fizzled out as lockdown took its toll, with the side sidling up just inside finals contention in eighth.
McMullan acknowledged the groundwork laid by Burness and hoped, with Threlfall backing him up, Dookie could recreate its fairy tale beginning again in 2022.
“Hopefully we’ll be well placed to make finals next year — we were there or thereabouts this year, but it never eventuated which was a bit unfortunate,” he said.
“We had a really good start to the year, but lockdowns and things like that probably didn’t go in our favour.
“But we built a solid base, so we’re hoping to go on from there.”
Having Threlfall, a former Shepparton Swans and Congupna enforcer, nestled next to Burness on the coaching front looks to have Dookie poised for greatness next season.
McMullan said the pair wouldn't be reinventing the wheel; rather greasing it for a red hot crack at finals football once again.
“ 'Cub’ (Burness) did a really good job last pre-season and I guess we’ll look to replicate that, get some more consistency with blokes turning up,” he said.
“We don’t need to do a whole lot more, we’ve got the core there and we’re looking at getting a bit of youth into the side which we’ve been proactive in doing.
“Other than that, we’ll top up in a few key positions and hopefully that should keep us in the mix.”
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