Travis Waters announced to lead Dookie United into 2025 Picola District Football League venture

Last time Waters donned teal and black, things went swimmingly for the Thunder.

His tenure at the club lasted almost a decade, starting as a player before moving into a coaching capacity for the club’s reserves outfit.

Waters guided Dookie to three grand finals in three years between 2014-16, with 2015 being the only year his Thunder failed to hoist the premiership cup.

But following the heights of success, a new challenge emerged.

“I had a year off and Dale Osborne was coaching the Mooroopna seniors at the time, who was previously a Dookie boy,” Waters said.

“He got me over to Mooroopna to coach the reserves. I did that for two years and then John Lamont got appointed as senior coach.

“I moved up to being the assistant coach under John since then, looking after the defenders for the last five years.”

Understudying Lamont, a man with decades of coaching experience at the likes of Oakleigh Chargers, Werribee and North Melbourne, has surely elevated Waters’ own mentoring nous by proxy.

There’s still unfinished work for him to sign off on at Mooroopna, too.

The Cats’ seniors sit fourth and are tipped to challenge strongly in the Goulburn Valley League finals series — and rightly so, Waters wants to end his time at the Cattery on a high.

“I’ve had a great time under John — obviously I spoke to John about this basically the same day as I agreed with Dookie, so he’s been aware of it from the start,” he said.

“I’m still really keen to finish my time at Mooroopna because we’ve still got finals to worry about as well, so it’s important to me being able to finish the year, which they’ve been great about.”

Once Mooroopna’s campaign concludes, Waters’ roundabout journey will spin back to the Thunder where his sons, Nash and Xavier, currently play.

That was a key influence in Waters’ decision to rejoin the Thunder, while the return to the PDFL gives the newly-anointed leader a sense of familiarity in preparation for the 2025 season.

“When I was at Dookie previously, we were in the Picola league so I haven’t been involved with Dookie while they’ve been in the KDL,” he said.

“Obviously I’ve spoken to all the players and everyone is really excited; it’s obviously really exciting for our juniors especially, being able to play on the same day.

“The seniors lost a few players this year, so it’s been a bit of a tough year for them. I think they won five games and they were pretty close to Tally on the weekend, so there’s plenty of positives there.

“We need to recruit a bit there as well, but hopefully with some game plan stuff and a bit of excitement around, that’s going to help as well.”