McDonald played no part in Saturday’s 71-run loss to Tallangatta and will join Albury in an unspecified role for the rest of the season.

“I just think my position there had become untenable and I’ll just leave it at that I think,” he said.

It’s been a brutal week for the Phoenix after captain Steve McLennan declared he too was leaving the club for Albury.

“’Macca’ and I are pretty much joined at the hip so where he goes, I’ll go with him,” he said.

McDonald guided the Phoenix to a drought-breaking finals campaign last season, but the club lost talented teenagers Angus Kilby (St Patrick’s) and Callum Langlands (North Albury), which followed the unavailability this season of boom English import Saif Zaib.

When quizzed further on his decision to leave, McDonald admitted he’s a hard taskmaster.

“I’ve got a pretty hard edge approach to my coaching and I’m quite strict with the discipline and the professionalism,” he said.

“I was put in charge (three years ago) to change the fortunes of the club and change the way things were done.

“We changed it up to be pretty higher-level sort of stuff, we got the results we wanted out of it last year.

“There’s no hard feelings towards the club, it’s just my time to move on.”

New City has a young team and it’s the only one yet to record a win after two rounds of 50-over cricket and three T20s.

Phoenix president Anthony Baker was contacted yesterday.

Meanwhile, the Border Bullets won’t be heading to the SCG.

The Bullets won just one of their three matches in the Regional Bash (T20) played in Wagga over the weekend.

The damage was done when the CAW outfit fell to current nemesis Wagga Sloggers on Saturday night.

The home team posted 8-136 and the Bullets 7-132.

The ACT Aces won its three games.