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After floating under the radar throughout most of the regular season, fifth placed Eastwood upset Easts and then Norths to book a spot in this year’s grand final, where they fell just short against Gordon.

Some would argue the Woodies overachieved this year, after losing a number of players from the previous year, but coach Ben Batger disagrees and thinks this year is only the beginning of a new era at Eastwood.

Overview with Ben Batger:

“It’s a difficult one to look back on because it was such a great season but when you lose a grand final, you always end up with a bitter taste in your mouth and the fact that we had a chance to win that grand final makes it even tougher,” Batger said.

“All in all, it was a great season though and if I was a school teaching giving it a grade, I’d give it an A. Winning the grand final would have made it an A+ but unfortunately we weren’t able to do that.

“I said from the start of the season that I thought it would take a bit of time to build and to play our best rugby. We lost 10 guys from last years semi final team so we virtually had to build a team from scratch and it always takes time to build combinations and cohesion.

“I was hoping we would come good through rounds six to 10 and then peak come finals time and I think we went pretty close to doing that. 

“There’s a perception that the wet weather during the finals suited our game but I don’t really agree with that. If you look at the numbers, we had the most line breaks, the most metres gained and the most tackle busts of any team and wet weather football negates all of that.

“I think people probably didn’t give us enough credit for adapting to the conditions in those games because it really wasn’t the type of rugby that we had played for most of the year. We weren’t a wet weather team, we just adapted on the go and the credit for that must go to Tane Edmed and Chris Bell, who were both outstanding.

“I still haven’t recovered fully from the grand final loss. I still haven’t spoken to the referees yet because one, I don’t think I’ve calmed down enough and two to be honest, the scrum isn’t my area of expertise.

“We had our chances though and if we were really on at scrum time, the ref would have had no choice but to give us a penalty try. Just before that Pat Sio almost scored, Ed Craig got held up over the line. We had our chances but unfortunately we couldn’t execute and Gordon made us pay.

“Our discipline in the first half wasn’t good enough either, we gifted them nine points and leaked a pretty easy try as well.

“I think most people would say that it was probably a fair result in the end, but we certainly had a chance to win it.

“The grand final was Jed Gillespie’s last match. He’s given a lot of good service to the club, debuted back in 2011, he’s won a few premierships and spent some time down at the Rebels. He’s got a lot of knowledge and he’s a great character around the club so he’ll be sorely missed and tough to replace.”

What needs to happen between now and round one next year?

“I just think we need to polish things up a little bit. I also think we need to create a bit more variety in our attack. At times, I thought we relied on our power game a little too much and probably overlooked some of the other attacking threats that we had across the park. 

“I also think we need to get a lot more disciplined next season. We received the second most yellow cards of any team this year and it’s hard to win football games when you’re playing consistently with 14 men. 

“But really, I just think we need more time together as a group. With COVID and a new playing group this year, we still don’t have as much cohesion as we could have and the guys don’t have a lot of shared experiences together. The more time they spend together, the better they will get.”

Which player(s) do you expect to go on to bigger and better things from next year?

“I can’t go past Tane Edmed, he was outstanding and it’s hard not to see him playing Super Rugby next year, whether that is off the bench or starting.

“He’s just a really level headed kid and the best part of this year is that he learnt every week. He’ll admit that back in round one against Souths, he got bashed off the park but each week he got better and better. He was always looking for feedback and looking for ways to improve, he was always doing extras, he’s a sponge and worked a lot with Tim Donnelly this year. 

“He just never gets flustered, whether we’re up by 20 or down by 20 and that steadiness spread right throughout our team this year because of him. 

“I don’t think we’ll see much of him next year. I think he’ll push really hard for the Waratahs No.10 spot and I think he deserves it. We’re rapped to see Eastwood players moving on to play professionally and that is a big focus at the club at the moment. 

“We had Tane, Lachie Anderson, Tim Anstee and Ed Craig all pick up contracts for next year which is great to see.”

Bold prediction for 2021:

“I think we’ll see a team from the bottom third of the competition push to make finals. It might be Hunter, Western Sydney, even West Harbour. There are a lot of good things happening at those clubs and I think with a big off season, one of them might be ready to take that next step. 

“I think we’ll be in the mix again. The guys are trying to get back to training now and I’m having to force them to take a break, so there is certainly no shortage of motivation after losing that grand final. We all want to go one better next year.”

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