“Where Eagles dare” Roslyn Lanigan April 22, 2009
Weekly Times
DUNOLLY Football Club doesn't have the flashiest club rooms, the best-kept oval or the most supporters. But it's got a lot of heart.
The club, in the Maryborough Castlemaine league, has won just nine senior matches in four seasons and hasn't played finals footy for 11 years. Its last flag win was in 1969 - enough to make the most ardent supporter despair.
One of the club's darkest days came in 2003, when Bears Lagoon-Serpentine crushed Dunolly 72.24 (456) to 0.1 (1).
The demoralising defeat came during the club's forgettable three-year stint the Loddon Valley league.
But things are looking up at the Eagles. The club has new coaches, new jumpers and a host of new recruits, including North Melbourne premiership player Shannon Motlop.
The Motlop signing - one of the biggest recruiting coups in country footy this year - saw Darwin bookmaker Sportsbet slash Dunolly's premiership odds from $41 to $8 overnight.
New Dunolly joint coach James McNamee spent the summer playing alongside Motlop at NTAFL grand finalist Wanderers. McNamee said Motlop would play eight to 10 games this season, plus finals should the Eagles qualify.
The two teams have also forged a sister-club arrangement, helping the Eagles to recruit fellow Wanderers Tim Karpany, a NTAFL best-and-fairest winner and former SANFL player, and Ashley Matz. In return, a group of Dunolly players will head north during summer. McNamee said the Wanderers signings signalled exciting times ahead for the Eagles.
"Dunolly has been a struggling club for a lot of years," he said. "The senior side has 10 players under the age of 20 and they're all good local blokes.
"If these young guys kept getting beaten week in, week out, they weren't going to stick around, so we had to do something." McNamee played his junior football alongside brothers Daniel and Michael at Dunolly, before stints at Maryborough, Natte-Bealiba and Rokewood-Corindhap.
Daniel is now Dunolly's president.
The trio boasts significant sporting bloodlines - triple Brownlow medallist Dick Reynolds was the boys' great-uncle, while tennis champion Paul McNamee is their uncle.
James, 23, will be joined in the senior coaching role at Dunolly by key forward Jeremy Sanders. Sanders has an enviable football history - he spent a season with Footscray's under-19s, played senior footy with West Footscray and Yarraville and has tasted back-to-back premiership success at both Maryborough and Carisbrook.
The 35-year-old said he was excited by the chance to revive Dunolly's on-field fortunes in his first coaching role. "I've had a couple of years off footy to spend time with my young family but the enthusiasm at Dunolly has rejuvenated me," Sanders said.
"The club is so used to being unsuccessful that they've forgotten what its like to be a strong club. "But a lot of blokes have stuck around during those tough years and now they can see something building."
Sanders said Dunolly had attracted some quality players from the Ballarat and Lexton Plains leagues and aimed to play finals this season.
The club has also replaced player payments with gym memberships at Maryborough's YMCA fitness centre, in a bid to get its team in peak condition.
"With the side that we've got, we're hoping to make the finals," Sanders said. "We're not aiming to win a flag this year - those things take time - but anything can happen come September."
Dunolly treasurer Stan McNamee, father of James and Eagles president Daniel, said the club was beginning to reap the rewards of an improvement program implemented last year.
"The objectives were increased crowds, increased training numbers, increased wins then increased percentage," McNamee Sr said.” The aim last year was to become the best of the bottom sides. "We won six games, so it was a good start.”Now we're aiming to be much more competitive against the top teams, like Carisbrook and Avoca."
McNamee Sr said the club was also hell-bent on regaining the support of the community. "When you're getting flogged every week, you're not really giving people a reason to be involved with the club," he said. "So one of the major things we set out to do was to get the town back on board."
He said the club had spent the past few Saturday mornings holding sausage sizzles and selling memberships in Dunolly's main street.
"We believe if the club is stronger, the community is stronger."
That community support will be tested in the opening rounds of the season, when Dunolly plays its home games in Maryborough.
Drought has left Dunolly's oval at Delidio Park an unplayable dustbowl.
It's a situation the club and the reserve's trustees are working to rectify.
"We're putting in a bore in the next couple of weeks and then we'll have to look at what kind of desalination plant we need to get that water on the ground," McNamee Sr said.
"We've also got a grant to build a toilet and shower block over at the netball courts, so that will help improve our facilities." He said the club's survival through difficult years was due to a core group of administrators and supporters who had "shouldered the load" to ensure the club battled on.
"Good clubs are the ones that stick together as a group, even when the going gets tough.”Dunolly is one of those clubs. Everyone does their bit around here."
Last Modified on 05/03/2010 23:01