Donnybrook coach Shane Bolton says Dons will not dwell on strong finals campaign ahead of preliminary final

Donnybrook coach Shane Bolton says his side will not spend any time dwelling on their strong finals campaign to date ahead of their preliminary final clash with Bunbury. The Dons dispatched Augusta-Margaret River in a 72-point smashing in the elimination final in week one and kept their season alive with an upset 23-point semifinal win over Harvey-Brunswick-Leschenault at Brunswick Oval on Saturday. The nature of the finals format means the Dons were certain to be playing a team coming off a loss, which turned out to be the Bulldogs after their 42-point defeat to South Bunbury in the second qualifying final on Sunday. But speaking after his side’s win on Saturday, Bolton said the results would count for nothing when his team takes to Hands Oval on Sunday. “You can’t really look into that too deeply, I don’t think,” he said. “You’ve got to keep looking at the strengths of your own side and building on what you’re doing well and trying to replicate that. “Consistency is the key for us and that’s what we’ll be focused on. We won’t really be focused on playing an opposition, we’ll be focusing on what we’ve been doing well.” With his side trailing by 17 points at the main break against the Lions before playing some of the best football of the season in a six-goal to none third term, Bolton said there was nothing complicated about his half-time message. “(The message was) just compose ourselves, play our way and everything will work out,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of experience. It was just about those mature heads lifting and coming to the front. “(Chris) Atthowe, (Clayton) Giblett, (Sam) Perkusich, all those guys, they just played mature football.” Progressing to the preliminary final means the Dons have already gone a step further than last year’s semifinal exit despite not being able to stage home games at VC Mitchell Park this season due to the precinct’s multimillion-dollar redevelopment, which is nearing completion. Bolton said he was proud of his players but their achievements were a testament to a “whole club effort”. “There’s a lot of people working behind the scenes to help us get up,” he said. “We’ve talked about it a lot throughout the season, how these sorts of things are character building. (We showed) real character in second half, so I guess we drew on that.” Club captain Ben Howlett made an early exit from the win over the Lions with a knee injury but Bolton said he was confident the veteran would give himself every chance to play in the preliminary final. “Ben’s a resilient character and he knows how to get himself up,” he said. “It was his 50th (for Donnybrook) today, but he’s played 400-odd games of footy. I’m sure he knows how to recover and get himself up for next week.”