Sydney University teaches Randwick a rugby lesson

Good to see Wiz and Jaun trotting out the company line. Uni have no doubt worked hard over the years for their success but the end result is they have an unfair advantage of being able to offer free Scholarships and Uni courses and free on campus accommodation which no ther club can do. Uni until about 2 years ago had no junior clubs to support. there is never any Uni officials at any of the schoolboy or country trials they just wait for the teams to be picked and say here you go 1 free Uni course. Wiz goes on about Hawthorne and Catchpole , Randwick is still paying off Campo ! but even if a club pays its players then that is their bussiness they generate money from sponsors, gates , etc just like the 11 clubs in Sydney the only club that gets thousands of dollars in free scholarships and accommodation is Uni and they do the least amount in the rugby community. Did Phil Waugh, Dan Vickerman go to Uni because they are a good club they all got free Uni courses just like Burgess got to leave Easts and Barnes has already said he is going to Uni so he can finish his Uni degree, who is paying for that!! does he have the correct marks?? who cares There was an Article in the paper about 12 years ago where Uni gloated saying they had 50 players on Scholarships, thank you NSW taxpayer They have brought in a points system in Colts to stop Uni warehousing all the top Schoolboy players so what are they doing about this? They are now approaching 13 and 14 year old players and telling them that to switch clubs to Canterbury who they bought as their junior club and what was the incentive to the players parents to do this?? a free Scholarship this way the player is deemed as a 1 point player. Am i talking rubbish? i can only go by what is see and hear. Trot out the company line fellas but the only people who think this stuff doesnt happen is people who follow Sydney Uni Rugby Institute all of the rugby community know what happens and see the ruined careers of good players. Maybe their should be a where are they now of the 20 odd Australian Schoolboy players who have played for Uni the past 6 years and see how many are still playing-- very few

To all the "Uni Bashers" afew points you may not know. Uni had almost a 30 year period of no 1st grade premierships. 2001 was the first premiership since 1972 and runners-up in 1999, 2000 and 2002. Knocked out in the Final (3rd) 2003 and 2004 .We have contested 9 grand finals the past 11 years unlike Randwick who were in the grand final 17 years in a row.Also our 1st grade with its 5 wins in a row is not a record as once more Randwick won 6 in a row. To tell me Randwick never paid to keep the "Mighty"Ken Cathchpole at Coogee oval during his career is a joke. And who paid for Phil Hawthorne to turn up at the same ground some years later. Accept the fact that a lot of hard work has gone into Uni's success the past decade, and to sit and point the finger remember 4 fingers are pointing back at you and your jealousy. Go the Students , give 'em the flick and make it 6.

Keith The NSW taxpayer doesn't pay for the scholarships offered to some Uni players. Some years ago the club set up a foundation to pay for the incentives used to attract players to the club. This foundation is what pays for these scholarships; they are not offered for free by the university. If successful schoolboy players come to play at uni and they find they are playing 3rd grade then there is nothing to stop them from playing for other clubs instead if they wish to play in higher grades. It's the players choice where to play, Uni does not force anyone to play for them. Let's face it though, even without scholarships being offered, Uni has developed such a successful formula at their club that players now actually want to go and play there. They are a winning club and good players want to play in winning teams.

I have just been reading the threads and some very interesting thoughts especially about Sydney Uni and how they became such a strong rugby club. The answer is easy in that they get 90% of the top schoolboys each year by offering either free scholarships,free on campus accommodation or contacts through their sponsors. The contacts through sponsors is a great incentive which most other clubs use but to also be sponsored by the NSW tax payers in just giving out free scholarships and free accommodation is something no other club can do and no other club can offer or they would go broke. The fact that Uni have dominated Colts for the past 5 or so year where they win just about every premiership highlights that they have the best players and unfortunatly Uni is riddled with destroyed rugby careers by having NSW schoolboys warehoused in 3rd grade colts when they should be playing 1st grade colts at other clubs. I have never seen a UNi represerntative at any schoolboy carnivals they just wait till the rep teams are picked and go in with the offers, they wouldn't even know what the player looks like. If this is so untrue why was the points system bought in to stop Uni poaching everyone's juniors and giving other clubs opportunities to attract a couple of up and coming players.How is it good for NSW rugby and Aust rugby to have Josh Daley the Aust schoolboys prop playing 3rd grade colts or Jack Hammond the NSW schools number 10 playing 15 in 3rd colts and how is it good for these players. Well done to Uni for their success but at what price, especially to the players.

Guys - this thread is fascinating. As a big rugby fan (and player) I have always been under the apprehension that rugby in Sydney is somewhat elitist in it's makeup. However - I am well aware of the advanced training programme that the Uni players undertake, which compares favourably to a number of pro and representative/international squads. their strength training programme is second to none, and (from what i have read) it is this high performance training environment that has contributed to their results. Frankly, from the reading i have done, they are a club with a highly professional attitude and support staff, in a semi-pro competition. Well done to them. if i lived in Australia, i would be tempted to go and try to play 3rd grade for them - even down the grades, they look like a superb club.

Juan Carlos, further to your point, Uni don't strike me as a team which has been bought. There is very obviously a strong culture of working for each other and the team as a whole - and also down the grades as well. I have seen clubs build teams in the past which have been successful in the short term - Manly and Southern Districts come to mind - but the whole-of-club culture that Uni has built is in a whole different league.

It's probably worth pointing out that Sydney Uni competes successfully in the Sydney grade cricket comp, the 2nd tier soccer comp, and the national water polo, swimming and women's basketball comps as well as providing support to everything else from boxing to open frisbee competitors. Sydney Uni's Sports Union can take just as much credit for offering opportunities to participants in myriad healthy activities just as much as for doing well in team sports in high level comps. Again, the rugby club's success is due to hard voluntary work of some good men. Uni clubs compete in the Melbourne, Perth (I think) and Brisbane club comps and Albies (a UNE college) won the New England comp this year. It's good for kids' education to complement their academic pursuits with sport, and if that sport is well organised and competitive, then all the better. One point everybody is missing though is that rugby is professional (whether we like it or not and personally I don't) and if any club wants to attempt to "buy" a premiership then that's up to them. It rarely works of course. I remember Warringah paying its first graders $500 a win with a grand final bonus on offer and still losing. Imagine that money going into colts development. To paraphrase rugby league coach Jack Gibson, "winning begins on Monday in the front office" and "if he's an idiot at 18 he'll be an idiot at 30". Hard work, organisation and a "no dickheads" policy work wonders.

Yes Running Randwick became Reef It Randwick. Still didn't do them any good. I have never complained that Uni as 'too professional' all strength to you the other clubs should likewise be more professional. My complaint is that you have an advantage that is not open to other clubs, but it is open to other Uni's they have chosen to not open that box. BTW it is your colts rather than the 1st grade players that are the focus of mine and others complaints.

True Juan - Although I have issues with Sydney Uni, I wish we had another 4 teams as successful as them. We might have something to build a national club comp on then. Uni players were several steps above Randwick on Saturday and should have inserted more points into their digit, still it is no easy thing to win 5 GF's on the trot regardless of how good you are and the press should have acknowledged that. Spiro stated that Uni had 3 Wallabies whilst Randwick had 6 and maybe Uni isn't getting as many Wallabies as they deserve. In my time Randwick just about dominated the Wallabies.

stillmissit I think you're still missing the point here. Let's actually acknowledge the PLAYERS who have won the premiership for the past 5 seasons. You can complain all you like about how they ended up playing for Uni; but none of them just turned up and expected to walk away with the title. They all put in a tremendous amount of effort and hard work in order to be in a successful rugby side. Give them some credit.

Hi All these rants about Sydney Uni club existence are beyond belief. Which districts do London Wasps, Harlequins, London Irish and Saracens in Guinness Premiership? Or GPS and Brothers in Queensland for that matter? Competitions evolve in a different way and have their own history. Franchise based competitions are rarely territorial yet it does not appear to bother their supporters. NBL in USA is a good example - clubs move from city to city (not often but they do) for example LA Lakers were originally from Detroit Michigan, moving to Minneapolis, Minnesota (known at the time as a "Land of 10000 lakes") and currently (as of 1960) in LA. Kind regards KF

The 2008 result should have been 50-nil and the 2009 result should have been Uni by about 25 points. If I was a Randwick supporter I'd be asking what has happened to 80 years of tradition, but that's another issue, as is the attempted "cheating" re the naming of the hookers and then the uncontested scrums. But back to that other stuff you were saying stillmissit, the powers that be have been trying to rid the comp of Sydney Uni for years, for as you put it, having "all the normal uni problems" or lack of professionalism. The club addressed that and now the argument is that Uni is too professional. You can't have it both ways. As for David Dennis and the "other young 5/8" I could name players poached by every other club. The absolute bulk of Uni's successful grade teams have come through the club's colts system. Those that whinge about Uni would be better off looking in their own backyards. There are three basic and obvious steps that Uni addressed to improve itself as a club and those options are available to every other club.

Congratulations btw on beating one of the worst Randwick teams I have watched. Must admit I dont like to watch them much as they were the old enemy. Only pity was you didnt stick 50 points up them as the type of game they played deserved that.

Juan Carlos and Dac - guys lets get real here. I agree that Uni's growth was based on a lot of hard work by a bunch of volunteers, but the winning over of the Uni hierarchy was their greatest achievement. To bring their efforts into focus there are, I am told over 9000 males in Uni of Western Sydney and only one subbies club from Uni Hawkesbury that struggles to field a full quota of players. This is because UWS couldn't give a stuff about sport and leaves that up to the students also most of the students are day students and have their own sport on weekends. There is absolutely no thoughts with the UWS faculty of building a sporting aspect to the Uni. I know Dave Dennis was a Penrith junior and there was another young 5/8th who played for Syd Uni from out that way, so to say that they dont take players from other clubs junior ranks is just plain rubbish. Where do the players come from? are they all youngsters who have entered Syd Uni as students and just happen to be excellent rugby players. Please give me a break. I managed a colts team for a while and the youngsters all knew that if they were good enough players they could get a break into Sydney Uni. Now I don't hold it against you guys as I played against Uni when they had all the normal Uni problems, lack of players at the start of the season, breaks to visit parents or more often go skiing, the majority of students who thought that rugby was for the thick and the brutal. They were one of the easy beats in Sydney grade. I genuinely admire the efforts of the original volunteers who put this structure in place, which is obviously taken from the US model. This would not have been easy, but lets not try to rewrite history guys by plastering over the truth.

100% correct Juan Carlos. You'd be surprised at the amount of highly rated schoolboy rugby players who are hawked around the clubs by parents/managers. The question they inevitably ask club recruitment officers and coaches is "what can you offer little Johnny?" Uni's preference is for players that want to improve themselves off the field as well as on the field, ie "what can little Johnny offer us?" And that means if they haven't matriculated to the university,then at least they should be completing bridging courses that allow them to do so. Uni's success is built on nothing less than hard, voluntary work and good planning. Any club can do it. It was a standing joke in Sydney club rugby when aspiring rep players were told to play for Randwick or forget about higher honours. From memory Bob Dwyer was Wallaby coach, Alan Quick NSW coach and Jeff Sayle Sydney coach. Why did Allan Holman leave Parramatta or Tim Kava leave Wests I wonder? Maybe I'm unfairly maligning those two, but I distinctly remember being told this by players at the time. "What can we do about it?" they would ask. My answer was always: "Train harder and play better and beat Randwick on the paddock." Just what the other clubs could be doing to counter Uni now.

Spiro - I wanted to add to your comments about the coaching staff at Uni and their influence on the clubs GF success. I do believe that Damien Hill is a great coach and no doubt should be rewarded for what he has done with the club, and in saying this i mean no disrespect to him or anyone else on the coaching staff. But i am disappointed that their is one person not getting the praise i believe they deserve. Yes rugby is truly a team sport and the Sydney Uni team are an amazing working machine, but if you ask me if their is one person who has had more influence on the past five Premierships than anyone else, i have to say the captain Tim Davidson. His rugby talents speak for themselves but his leadership has driven and pulled that team through every game and every training session for the past five years, and five premierships. If he is lost to Australian rugby because his skill sets on and off the field are over looked it will be a sad day for us all.

Sydney Morning Herald's write up about the Shute Shield final was very disappointing indeed. Very little regard was paid to the achievements of Sydney University and its players. It's not easy to win a grand final, let alone 5 in a row; all the Uni bashing that goes on doesn't give credit to the enormous amount of hard work by the players, coaches and administrators that have made this possible. It's funny because I don't seem to remember too many people having a problem with Uni being in the competition prior to the last decade when they weren't exactly successful. It's only since they've started winning that people are complaining they have an unfair advantage. It sounds a lot like tall poppy syndrome to me. For those who have accused Uni of poaching players from other clubs' junior ranks, it's worth noting just how inaccurate that kind of statement actually is. Most of Uni's senior players are either from country NSW or have grown up playing their rugby at GPS schools in Sydney and therefore have not been attached to a junior club at all in the past. Other clubs have all got the opportunity to recruit these kinds of players once they have finished playing at school and are looking for senior clubs. Everyone is dismayed at the performance of the Wallabies this year and the general quality of Australian rugby at the professional level. One club has lifted the benchmark at amatuer level and instead of other clubs striving to reach the same level, people seem more interested in bringing Uni back down to everyone else's level. That kind of attitude doesn't bode well for Australian rugby in the future.

What other clubs RickG? I think you'll be hard-pressed to find any clubs that had to make way for Uni when the Sydney comp began. As for the legitimacy and strength of Uni, rugby followers might be interested to know that former Western Suburbs and St George league coach and now SMH columnist Roy Masters has often lamented the loss of Sydney Uni from the Sydney rugby league comp in the 1930s. In many ways Sydney Uni Rugby Club has become what he envisioned for rugby league. (He had coached Tamworth High to a number of University Shield rugby league titles.) And speaking of the SMH, why no match report of the Shute Shield Grand Final? Twelve paragraphs on Shawn MCrae, four paragraphs on Randwick fourth graders and a bit at the end on Uni's win. What about the significance of five in a row and Tim Davidson at the helm, Randwick's continuation of the past 10 years of un-Randwick play, Uni overcoming the other clubs' attempts to nobble them this year only for Randwick to turn up with six Wallabies and their Super 12 signings and lose?

Yes, but there were other clubs that had to make way when the district comp was set up.

I have to admit - to my eyes - it seems strange that a University club can dominate a domestic comp in the modern era. I say this as a Southerner, well versed in Southern ways - when you look at the history of aussie rules - the University clubs were banished to the amateur leagues, long, long ago. University survived in the VFL (Melb Uni) from 1908 to 1914 - the general lack of resources, and then the war, got in the way and that was the end of that - even without the War they were on the way out. Apart from Sydney, no University club remains in any of the top state leagues - they simply are unable to compete at the elite level. So when I see Sydney Uni dominating the NSWRU, I have to scratch my head and wonder how on Earth that is possible - to my way of thinking - it just doesn't compute. Is it just a case of professionalism not having trickled down yet? I'm expressing my confusion in all sincerity.