Warringah experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows as a club in 2017. In his first year at the club, coach Darren Coleman transformed the perennial underachievers into a premiership side, all while mourning the tragic loss of lower grade player Lachie Ward.

In 2018, the hunters will become the hunted and Coleman is well aware that his side will have a target on their back all season.

Overview with Darren Coleman:

“It’s hard to know just yet if it will be harder to defend a title than it was to win one, I guess we won’t know until the season starts but I don’t think we’ll be able to sneak up on anyone anymore. Everyone is fully aware of what you can do and every coach will try and get their side up to play us, so that’ll be different,” Coleman said.

“You always want to be a little more consistent and play better but after the year we had, which has been talked about a lot, to win the premiership was a great way to finish for everyone involved in the club.

“I think the hunger is still there but you never really know. Our trial form has been good and all the effort indicators are right up even though there is still room for improvement. I spent a lot of time researching, learning and talking to other sides that have defended premierships and others that hadn’t in various sports and tried to work out the reasoning or some of the signs as to why you do or don’t.

“I spent a bit of time with Craig Bellamy at the Melbourne Storm and the biggest learnings from that were the consistency in effort and hard work. If you drive for consistency and keep your standards high, then you’ll perform consistently better. That stands to reason, so there’s no magic fix really, it’s seems to be about keeping your eye on the things you did well last year and then adding to it.

“We didn’t take too much out of the Australian Club Championship win. UQ would admit they were a long way from their best and didn’t have their grand final side on the park. We were pleased to win it, but there were a lot of aspects that made it look like our second game of the season.

“Statistically, we turned over more ball in that game than we did in any of our 24 games last year. We turned the ball over 40 times and our error rate was very high. The effort was good but our execution was a long way off.

“We’re happy with the way some of the new boys have fitted in. Harry Rorke and Baxter King are doing really well up front. Ru McKenzie has also been a bit of a surprise packet. When I recruited him I didn’t think he’d be in first grade so early, he’s been great. Mark Gerrard’s return will also add a bit, particularly as he gets more match fitness.

“There’s definitely a positive feel around the place. We’ve started the year with 12 trial wins from 12 in grade and we’ve got good numbers, which drives standards and competition for spots. That’s positive but it’s a strong competition and there are a lot of strong clubs around so we’re under no illusions as to how hard it’s going to be.

2017 result: Premiers

Ins: Harry Rorke (Gordon), Baxter King (Perth), Ru McKenzie (Glasgow), Mark Gerrard (Japan), Tom Halse (New Zealand), Emmanuel Meafou (Brisbane), Mahe Vailanu (Melbourne Rebels)

Outs: Tom Connor (Aussie 7s), Sam Needs (Japan), Josh Gillard (Canberra), Cam Treloar (retired), Mick Adams (Manly), Paula Kaho (West Harbour), Chris Alley (sabbatical).

Key areas of improvement: 

“I’d like our lineout to become more consistent and we’ve been working hard on that. I also want us to have a more aggressive defensive mindset, we want to be more imposing and force more errors on the back of that.

“We’ve picked up Ben McCormack as an assistant coach and he was the Director of Rugby at Brothers up in Brisbane. He’s now forwards/defence coach and he’s been great and brought some new ideas on those areas to the club. Based on our preseason form, our lineout percentages have been better than they were last year and we’re still working on our defensive mindset.”

Player(s) to watch:

“Max Girdler has started at No.6 for us in our trials and he’s come up from colts last year after playing with the NSW U20s. He’s a northern beaches boy and played his junior rugby at Newport,” Coleman continued.

“Ben Marr is another young kid out of colts. He missed the first few trials with injury but he’s got an amazing amount of talent and if he stays dedicated and focussed, he could be anything.

“I think he’s definitely got the talent to push into our first grade backline, he’s just got to work on his game knowledge and consistency like most young players.”

Hope and expectations for the season:

“Anything less than a premiership this year will be disappointing but I think before that, I’d like us to be more consistent week in, week out during the regular season.

“We played really well in the last round last year and into the playoffs and quite a few people have made the comment that we were in form at the right time of the year. I guess that’s what you need to do to win a competition but we also understand that if you can finish higher up on the ladder, it makes those last few games a lot easier.

“I think if we can do that and win the competition, it’ll be a much bigger sporting achievement than last year’s premiership, even if it isn’t as big a fairytale. To win it twice in a row would be something that we’d be really proud of.”

Who will Warringah play in the grand final? 

“Norths or Souths I think at this stage,” Coleman predicted.

“If Norths get all their Waratahs on the field at the same time, they’re going to be a very quality outfit.”

“Souths, there’s a lot of us last year about them. They’ve been thereabouts for quite a while now and they’ll be seriously driven to put it together at the back end of the year, plus they’ve got a very strong squad again.

“I also think Easts, West Harbour and Sydney Uni will all improve quite a bit and that’s going to make it quite hard to crack that group of top four or so sides.”

Photo: Karen Watson