AFTER one season in charge of Lockington-Bamawm United that yielded another premiership for the Heathcote District Football League club, Adrian Dohnt is stepping down as coach of the Cats.

Dohnt cited work and family commitments as the two key reasons to hand over the coaching reins, but the star midfielder will remain as a player with the Cats next year.

Dohnt this year took over as coach of the Cats from Kahl Oliver, who had led the club to the past three HDFL premierships.

Under Dohnt's guidance, the Cats made it four flags in a row with a memorable 11-point grand final win over North Bendigo on September 6 at Huntly.

"I've got three kids under the age of five, I run my own business and my wife runs her own business," Dohnt said on Wednesday.

"There's two things that come before footy, and that's family and work and they are the two things that were going to make it the hardest to continue in the role next year.

"I would liked to have done it longer, but with the situation I'm in, it makes it a bit hard, but I'll stay on and play out there and will be more than happy to help out in any way I can."

Despite having won the past three flags, the Cats went into last month's grand final against North Bendigo - the standout team of the home and away season - as the underdogs.

The Cats' premiership run looked on the verge of ending when they trailed the Bulldogs by 26 points early in the third quarter.

However, the Cats kicked eight of the last 10 goals of the game to win 13.9 (87) to 11.10 (76).

"A month on, it's still fairly surreal that we won that game," said Dohnt, who overcame a shoulder injury to play in the grand final.

"Momentum in footy is a big thing, and once we were able to start to get the momentum in the third quarter, we got that bit of a sniff and it rolled on from there."

Midfielder Marcus Angove capped his breakout season by winning the Cats' best and fairest.

"It was a great effort by a young player in Marcus to win the best and fairest in a premiership year," Dohnt said.

"He had an outstanding season."