THE South West Football league season commences this coming Sunday with Donnybrook travelling to Collie.
New league coach Dave Lewis, tempted over from Collie himself in the off season, said he was happy with the way the team have trained and is expecting to surprise some of the city-based clubs this year.
Coming off a wooden spoon last year, Donnybrook has added some key inclusions to help their side this year.
In the other grades, new reserves coach Wade Cross has assembled a group of local stalwarts who will play for Donnybrook.
Results in recent years have been poor and Cross expects to have the best reserves season the club has seen for a decade.
In the colts, new coach Julian Burgess has a young side who he coached through the juniors as a group.
The club confidently expects its best colts season since re-joining the competition eight years ago.
On Saturday the Dons travel to Margaret River for the pre-season triangular hit out.
The Dons were matched against Augusta-Margaret River and the Eaton Boomers.
The Dons started the first game brightly into the strong breeze and looked to have way too much class for an under-strengthed AMR side, who look like this year’s strugglers.
Coach Lewis was able to use his improved squad depth to set big Jeff Smith free in the forward line.
Without the hard slog around the ground, Smith was absolutely dominant up front kicking four in the Dons comfortable win.
In the next game, the Dons were straight back into the action against last year’s premiers, Eaton.
With several players sitting the second game out with minor injuries, the Dons were looking a bit thin to take on the reigning premiers and so it proved.
Eaton had the breeze in the first period and used it well.
By half time they were out of sight and although the Dons won the last period, they finished well short.
Coach Lewis said he was happy with the hit out and it was good to have a look at one of the best sides in the competition early on.
He said he was expecting nothing less than the full trifecta of wins in round one, where the Dons are hoping to take a big group of supporters up the hill to Collie.
