Led by the competition’s leading try scorer Paula Balakena, Gordon showed glimpses of their best in 2017 but struggled towards the back end of the season as their injury list grew.

Coach Mark Philp has spent the summer building his squad’s resilience, both physically and mentally, and he’s hopeful that might be the different this season.

Overview with Mark Philp:

“Our preseason has been long but really good. We’ve implemented an entirely new strength and conditioning program and that’s paid massive dividends for our boys already, both physically and mentally. That was one of the biggest things we wanted to fix from last year,” Gordon coach Mark Philp said.

“Probably half way through last season, we hit a bit of a slump both mentally and physically. We’ve planned our strength and conditioning program to counter that this year and have trained more in peaks and troughs to avoid that general decline.

“I think we did really well in the first 10 rounds of last year but things sort of went downhill from there and hopefully the changes we’ve made will help that.

“I was really pleased with how we embraced our new style of play last year. We simplified how we played rugby and put a big emphasis on our execution. That meant we spent a bit more time focusing on how we attacked with the ball and that probably caused some of the lapses we had in defence.

“Last year we were one of the top scoring clubs in the competition but we just conceded far too many points so that’s what we’ve focussed on this preseason. Obviously we want to continue to improve our attack, but we want our defence to be just as strong.

“Paula Balakena had a fantastic year last season. He’s currently in the process of getting an Australian visa and the club have helped him with that. To do that, he had to go back to Fiji so we are waiting for that to get approved before he returns to us. We’re confident he’ll be back this year though and we can’t wait to see what he can do again.

“We’ve had a lot of players come back to the club in the last 18 months and we’ve been really pleased about that. Our colts had a really good season in 2016 and a lot of those players are back and pushing into the higher grades this year. Then we’ve had a lot of guys that left for club for different reasons over the years also return and that’s really helped improve the overall club culture.

“We’ve picked up some exciting new recruits and we’ve really targeted who we got there, but getting older guys that have plenty of Gordon experience is really important for the club and that’s improved our depth and the overall culture.”

2017 result: 

Ins: Dylan Rowe (New Zealand), Luke Lough (Sydney Uni), Waldo Wessels (Parramatta).

Outs: Ruairidh Wilson (Scotland), Nick Fraser (Scotland), Luke Papworth (work commitments), Matt Hayter (Subbies).

Key areas of improvement: 

“Our defensive structures are the big thing we’d like to improve this year. I’d also like to see us improve our decision making under fatigue. We don’t seem to have too many issues in attack, but in defence I think we struggle to make the right decisions at times.

“It’s pretty simple for us in 2018. We want to maintain the way we attack with the ball but tighten up everywhere in defence. That’s the case across all the grades but we especially have to tighten up in first grade. It’s great that we can score tries, we just need to make sure we score one more than our opposition each week.”

Player(s) to watch: 

“Dylan Rowe is definitely one to watch, he’s a backrower that has come over from New Zealand. Mike Kennedy is another. He played a couple of games for us at No.9 but he had a few injuries throughout the year.

“Pat Toeta our flyhalf is looking fresh and is in much better condition this year than he was at the same point last year.

“Bill Freeman at No.15 is young but he is a really hard working fullback and he’s got plenty of flare.

“In the forwards, Jack Margin has worked his way into first grade after graduating from colts. He’s a big unit and will be good to watch. Nick Brown is another forward who excites me. He’s been training with the Australian and NSW U20s all year and he’s trialled really well. He played 75 minutes against Easts and didn’t look out of place at all.”

Hopes and expectations for the season: 

“I expect us to continue to improve and embrace our new defensive structures. I know the boys have already embraced the way we attack and I think we’ll continue to do that, now I want them to embrace how we defend. We refer to it as playing without the ball because a big part of that is trying to get the footy back,” Philp said.

“My hopes, I’m an optimist and I’m very competitive so I hope we can go as far as we can and get to the big dance. There is no point beating around the bush, everyone at Gordon wants to win every game we play.”

Who will Gordon play in the grand final?

“I think if you’re a Gordon player, you have to say Norths. To beat your local rival in a grand final would be fantastic. For me, I’d love to play and beat a side like Eastwood. Every time I’ve coached or played against Eastwood, it’s always a really enjoyable contest. It’s physical, it’s competitive but it’s enjoyable, so that’s my opinion but I think most Gordon guys would say Norths.

“If we’re being realistic, it’s going to be incredibly tough to break into the top six. So many teams last year made huge steps forward and I think we were one of them. The comp isn’t where it was a few years ago where you could pick who would win most matches. You can’t pick it anymore and that’s great for the sport but it makes for a very tight competition.

“We’re under no illusions as to how hard it will be but considering what we were able to do last year, then coming so close in four or five other games that could have gone either way, I certainly think we’ve got the capacity to play finals footy this season.”