Another year, another Shute Shield for Sydney University

It was a little different in the amateur era when it was essentially a level playing field in terms of potential recruitment, notwithstanding the fact that the top players gravitated to the most successful clubs. There were also periods when Northern Suburbs, Sydney University and Gordon also dominated the Shute Shield. The difference today is that in the professional era, no other club can compete with Sydney University in recruiting the cream of rugby talent because of their ability to offer non-cash incentives by way of scholarships which no other club can match, even when paying their players, which has driven most of the clubs to the brink of financial collapse. It has become a lop sided competition which was clearly demonstrated by Sydney University's demolition of Eastwood in the Grand Final. Despite Eastwood being minor premiers for the 4th year in a row and with only 1 contracted Super Rugby Player (Benn Robinson) , they were on a hiding to nothing against a team stacked with Super Rugby professionals including players on the bench. It's a sad indictment that a team that has performed consistently throughout the season is hamstrung by being pitted against a team of last minute professional reinforcements during the final's series. If Eastwood was the best of the rest, including 4 premierships since 1999, what hope has any other club got?

For those with longer memories please recall how once upon a time Randwick totally dominated Sydney club rugby. For that matter St George totally dominated the League with Souths the perpetual runner-up. Eventually the worm turns. Another club will eventually take aver and have their decade in the sun.

Galgano, Your arguments are flawed. Firstly there is a club in the inner west, it's called West Harbour who have a thriving Junior club. Wests source the vast majority of their players from their juniors, local schools and the greater west. As you speak in percentages that equals about 95% of the players from the district compared to your supposed 12.5%. As you have no district you have effectively pouched 12.5% of the players who should be playing for Wests. Take a look at the Eastwood team, some are from Wests but this happens naturally as they are attracted to a good district club supported by the local community, hell even Maneti s a old Wests man, but many are local juniors You also fail to mention your players junior district clubs but rather schools to hide the flaws in your argument. Not all Schoolboy players go on to play colts or even grade, so you stats are false. Why do you have Australian Schoolboys in your second grade colts team? Hell even Luke Burgass played 4th grade colts many moons ago. Yes, I agree Uni has done a great job in their coaching structures etc and there shouldn't be a race to the bottom to level things out but pouching top Schoolboy talent with Uni degrees and then placing them in lower grades does not help Australian Rugby.

A mate of mine was at Sydney Uni as a student and played NSW CHS 2nds I think. He was told not to even bother trying out for Uni Colts. He spent his free time training with the University regiment as a reserve soldier and played for the beastie colts. On finishing at Uni went into the regular Army before joining 2 Commando doing 2 tours of Afghanistan and then the big one, passing that mongrel of a 21 day entry requirement called the Carter course to become a member of a Sabre squadron of the SAS (special air Services). his joke he tells anyone who will listen is he was good enough for 2 commando, good enough to do 2 tours of the Gahn, good enough to be decorated as an Australian soldier, good enough to pass entry into the SAS but was never good enough to trial for Sydney Uni colts!!!! Rugby in Sydney is an posh boys game, where in NZ its a game of the people, and how are the Wallabies travelling?? I stopped my season tickets to the TAH's about 5 years ago, I then started going down to Foreshaw to watch Southern Districts have a run but soon realised the comp is designed for one outcome. Even when Southern districts were competitive against Uni last year, we wouldn't score one point against uni in the lower grades. I have turned my back on rugby. Go the Swannies

Please keep up to date before making comment! UNSW already sponsors Randwick and UTS Gordon

Don't forget Hawthorne was another blowin to Randwick!

There is something very Rugby Union to Sheek's response of Sydney University being a successful semi-professional club, with fundraising, advertising, coterie groups and so on is not to ask 'How can we get this level of professionalism into every other rugby union club' but 'How do we best ban Sydney University from competing'.

Point taken Midfielder

Charcoal My point was / is Union does not try and connect with the local community...

So SU has marginally more local juniors in the entire club than it had former Australian Schoolboys in the 1st grade side on Saturday? And of those players you have listed there Tom Carter, Bernard Foley and Tom English were in the NSW Schoolboys side so they were already extremely junior players before entering the SU colts system not mention many of them having junior connections to other clubs (e.g. Betham to Randwick and Foley to Eastwood). Also your logic below about SU only having 0.8 more former NSW schoolboy reps than other clubs is extraordinarily faulty. To get to that you have to assume that every single player to represent NSW schools goes on to play in the Shute Shield which you surely cannot believe is the truth. The more realistic figure would be what percentage of players in the shute shield who have represented NSW schools does SU have?

I apologise for getting the St Andrews figure wrong but I did acknowledge that it may be wrong when I originally stated it. Also having 3 paid coaches would be more than almost all the clubs in the Shute Shield and it's triple the number of the club I used to play for. I don't doubt that SU has those attributes but to try and claim that the financial advantage SU has over all the other clubs doesn't play a role in their success. It's also extremely insulting to say that other clubs don't have positive, optimistic, motivated and dedicated volunteers.

Yes I agree with you Midfielder, as a regular visitor to Eastwood Mall, there is not much evidence that the local businesses connect with the Woodies, except for Holman's Discounts (previously Retravision, now Betta Electrical), a long term sponsor. This is no doubt reflective of the changed cultural impact in Eastwood where the overwhelming majority of businesses are now Asian oriented which show no great interest in Rugby. Eastwood is not alone in this respect, as other major centres such as Chatswood, Hurstville, Ashfield and Burwood also have a heavy Asian influence. It's not going to change and I have embraced it. However, despite the lack of support from the local business community, Eastwood still has one of the biggest supporter bases in the Shute Shield competition from within the district.

Read my post again.

What questions?

I take your point Ian, but the reality is that any split in the Sydney Region for a new 3rd tier competition (or even as a 2nd tier if a closed conference system as part of Super Rugby was implemented) has to be based on the existing established club footprints. That's why I'm suggesting that the most logical split for the immediate future is North, West and South. Development in non-traditional areas could come later as Rugby's footprint expands. In earlier times, there was a North Harbour/South Harbour split, with North Harbour represented by Northern Suburbs, Manly, Gordon, Parramatta and Eastwood and South Harbour by Sydney University, Eastern Suburbs, Randwick, Drummoyne and St George. The annual North Harbour v South Harbour clashes, played at North Sydney Oval, were a highlight of the representative season, drawing big crowds, and this was the pathway to State selection and ultimately Wallaby selection (and which I might add included City v Country matches along the way). Some of these teams have changed and new teams added so that the Shute Shield competition is now more geographically spread and it is now appropriate to include Western Sydney as the third representative force in the Sydney Region. Assuming that the current clubs would become de-facto feeder clubs into the new representative structure, this obviously requires a realignment of clubs to balance the representation in each zone. Parramatta and Penrith would obviously form the basis of a Sydney West zone and West Harbour and Eastwood could legitimately be included. After all, Eastwood's territory extends up to Dural in the North West. Let's not forget that in the ARC, the Western Sydney Rams, based on the same club feeder structure, was one of the top teams. This doesn't necessarily preclude other Shute Shield clubs being established in the future in those areas not currently represented, such as Campbelltown.

Well why not make the whole 3-rd tier comp a bloddy Uni collegite comp then. RUPA were spruiking that last year. Other teams are linking with Unis, not just the Sydney Uni mafia. Brumbies now with UCan down Canberra way, Randwick with UNSW,Brisbane Uni, a few others UTS Lindifeld with Gordon. Gordon is only 1 train stop after Lindfield on that silly north shore train line lol so is close. And you go down to Chatswood oval to play for the stags, then hop down to the Gordon Social club at chatswood, duck into Maccas on the way, perfect.

I think the problem with the finals every year in the Shute Shield is that Super Rugby players come in a the last minute and are allowed to play in the finals for a team they haven't played for all year. To play in the finals players should have had to play at least 25% of the regular season games, unless injuried.

Agree there is no community support as the community hardly know what the Shute Shield is, let alone Rugby Union in general. The only people I ever hear talking about the games are friends of players and past players.

My apology Charcoal, it is with UTS: "In 2013 UTS will form a partnership with Sydney Grade Premiership Club Gordon Rugby Union Club. This is the result of a ground breaking 2 year sponsorship agreement between Gordon and UTS for the 2013/14 seasons. Gordon is one of the iconic clubs in Sydney Rugby Union. The club has won the Sydney First Grade Premiership on eight occasions, and the Club Championship 13 times. The club has already had an ongoing relationship with UTS over several years. Several high profile players have been part of the UTS Elite and Emerging Athlete Program , as well as being members of the UTS Rugby Union 7s squad that won gold at the Australian University Games in 2011 season. Gordon is actively recruiting new talent for the 2013 season and welcomes players of all abilities. If you’re interested in playing please visit their website: http://gordonrugby.com.au/"

Aren't Gordon sponsored by UTS Lindfield? Macquarie University is only a kilometre away from Eastwood's home ground, T G Millner, so I'd be surprised if they would be sponsoring Gordon.