Yarra Valley Water InFocus 2026 | Doncaster East

By Jared Beanland.

The two finals series of ’22 and ’23 are a fair way in the past for Doncaster East now, having now finished 8^th on the ladder two years in a row. Seasons marred by injury, inconsistency, and a lack of player continuity have hampered the progress of what otherwise could have been a heavy hitting team.

Ryan James is now in his fourth year as senior men’s coach, and is optimistic about the continued development of his side.

A fresh start will bring renewed focus on certain parts of the Lions’ game which have been lacking the past couple of years.

“Preseason’s been good. The numbers have been good – the majority of our list has had a full preseason. Our younger boys who have had a bit of exposure over the last couple of years have stepped up.”

“We’ve put an emphasis on how we defend, and changing some little things. Our attack last year was pretty strong, even against the better teams. Defensively we were way too inconsistent. Some weeks we were really good, some weeks we were beyond poor. We put an emphasis on that, and more on our attitude around that, and why we defend, rather than mixing up gameplans and things like that.”

The key word is consistency, and while Doncaster East managed to take a couple of impressive scalps last year – showing that their best was up there with the top flyers in the division – there were many games in which they didn’t hit their full potential.

“We’ve identified – and our stats will say this – consistency in personnel, consistency in games, consistency in the way we train, consistency in attitude. In every part of our game we haven’t been consistent over the last two years. A little bit of that is consistency in personnel and injuries. But every other part of our game we haven’t been consistent in. So we’ve put an emphasis on every training session we try to be consistent. Sometimes with a younger group they think they can do the big things well without doing the little things, so we’re trying to get the small things right, and the bigger things will take care of themselves.”

Doncaster East have been actively recruiting once more, getting their hands on some impressive young talent. Midfielder Josh Gasparini comes to the Lions as a two-time premiership player with Old Haileybury, three team of the year appearances, and has VFL experience with Sandringham.

Kai and Tomoya Owens both come in with VFL experience – Kai at Frankston, and Tomoya at both Sandringham and Frankston. Kai made a name for himself in the midfield at VFL level, while Tomoya can slot onto a wing.

The brothers will be joined by another pair of brothers, Noah and Will Gown. Noah was drafted to Essendon’s AFL list in 2018, and managed to be Frankston’s leading goal scorer in 2024. Will on the other hand will be added as a Talyinn Duman-style half-backman, and has played two years with Sandringham.

“They’ve all been really good, Kai, Will, and Josh Gasparini have been massive for our culture, and helped the boys lighten the load on some of our leaders, and helped with our professionalism off the ground. They’ve all made team of the year last year, a couple have won Best and Fairests, they’ve all played in state football. Still growing in their own games, they’ve under 25, but you can see why they dominated the leagues where they were last year. With recruiting, getting the name on paper is half the battle.”

“We look at the personality first. All our recruits have relationships with people at the club, so Josh Deluca before he headed back to Perth worked with Kai for example. So we look at that, but we were really lucky to get Josh Schache and Tim O’Brien the past couple of years, but we were really wanting to get away from the 6-pointers. We wanted to build a bit more depth through our group, so we targeted positions. Will Gown was Team of the Year half back, and plays similar to Taylinn Duman, so that gives us some options so oppositions can’t sit on Tay, and we’ve been able to move Tay up the ground a little bit this summer. Unless they’ve really got a relationship with blokes at the club we don’t go too far down any other path.”

Adding to the big names, former Carlton and Collingwood AFL player Jordan Russell will be added to the coaching staff, a massive boon for James and his panel.

“Jordan Russell has come on board, and he’s done a few sessions with the group, and myself. The ability to have an AFL assistant coach, who’s coached his own lines and who’s current head of development at Carlton has been massive for our group so far, so we’re pumped. It’s probably worked out better for me having him involved in our program.”

To even out some of the consistency James is looking to the under 19s that have been coming through, and have been forced to develop at senior level given the amount of injuries suffered by the senior team.

Having an array of ex-AFL talent to call upon, the Lions have to be mindful of the player point system, and are looking to remedy that with the use of homegrown talent, which will enable these big names to play.

“Beverly Hills has always been big for Doncaster East. There’s probably not too many players who are popping up who will play under 19s and seniors this year, but it’s moreso a lot of the younger kids – with our injuries over the last couple of years – we’ve debuted up to 25 under 19s over the last two years. So we’re just looking forward to seeing them develop. A lot of them are now at the 10 to 15 to 20 game mark."

"Hopefully their spike in development is what we’re looking for. We probably played a few of them before they were ready, but hopefully we bear the fruit of that labour and it probably buys some of the under 19s this year some time to develop their game before we chuck them in the deep end.”

“Depth in Premier has been pretty big. Over the last couple of years we’ve played a lot of players, some through necessity, but some through trying to develop them. Two years ago when we made the Prelim we had a really old list, and now we’ve probably got one of the youngest in the comp. So we’re happy with that side of it."

"Obviously everyone wants to talk about our high-end recruits, but we’re only able to get high-points players if we’ve got a lot of one-pointers playing. I think that often gets overlooked, how many young kids at one point that we must have to be able to recruit who we recruit. We’re just looking forward to development across the whole group. We think we’re as well placed as we have been over a few years to try and be consistent.”

“Ball movement won’t be too much different, it will probably be a little bit more refined. You’ll probably see a different forward six personnel-wise. But we were the fifth highest scoring team last year, so scoring’s not really our issue, I’d just like to think you’ll see a more consistent and a better intent to defend.”

Doncaster East have opened their 2026 account with a nail-biting 3 point win over Vermont in Round 1. They must now travel to Edwin Flack to test out the sturdy defense of Berwick in Round 2.