Sydney Uni missed the finals for the second straight season but there were still quite a few positives to take from Todd Louden’s first season back at Camperdown.

First-year No.8-turned-flanker Sam Allsopp had a breakout season and won the Shute Shield’s Rookie of the Year award, while a number of other young talents debuted for the Students in the top grade.

Overview with Todd Louden:

“It wasn’t the season we wanted but it might have been the season we had to have,” Louden told Rugby News.

“I’ve just finished our statistical report for the year and we actually finished in the top four in a lot of areas across the competition with a really young rugby side but unfortunately we just couldn’t finish the job in a number of tight games.

“We’d always planned to try and develop some young guys this year to build the depth at the club but we probably got a bit more than we planned for in that regard after a few injuries.

“I think this year puts us in a really good position moving forward so we’re pretty buoyant about things.

“The competition is changing year on year, which is great. The whole competition this year was tight and if you look at the points differential and the bonus points, there wasn’t much in it. We just struggled in those tight games.

“Traditionally, we’ve never run fresh reserves at Uni and if you look at the top six sides this year, at one stage or another, they all ran pretty hefty fresh benches in the tight five, particularly as the competition went on.

“World Rugby is trying to speed the game up, so I think that’s something we’ll see more of.

“Had we of beaten Manly twice this year, we would have been in the finals and we were pretty close in both of those games.

“I’m not trying to be super positive, but we’re being realistic about it and we’re looking forward to what comes next.”

What is the focus at Sydney Uni between now and round one next year? 

“We need to try and capitalise on the work that was done this year,” the coach said.

“We’ll also look to make sure we’ve got the depth across the club in our tight five so that occasionally we can run some fresh reserves and we’ll look to learn from some of the close losses we had this year.

“We’ll also need to adapt to some of the new laws over summer that I think will make a big difference.

“I think we’ll see more free kicks from scrums which changes the way you approach set piece and there will be less opportunity to score from mauls, with teams needing to use the ball as soon as a maul stops.

“We already saw a decent reduction in maul tries in the Shute Shield this year and I think that’ll continue next year.”

Which of your players do you expect to push on next year? 

“We’ve got some good young talent pushing through. We’ve got a young halfback name Hwi Sharples who is a really exciting young talent and played some first grade this year straight out of school,” Louden explained.

“(No.8) Eamon Doyle is another player we think highly of and Henry James at No.10 looks promising.

“They all had a taste of first grade this year and they’ll continue to develop.

“There are plenty of good young players at the club but they are probably the top three that come to mind.”

What can we expect in 2024? 

“The competition is changing every two or so years now. It probably used to change every four years but that’s sped up in recent times as teams get better at following trends from around the world,” the veteran coach said.

“These new laws are going to change the shape of the game again.

“I also think there will be a bit of a changing of the guard across the Shute Shield. Easts will be strong again but I also think a few different clubs might push up and join them.

“It’s a really tight competition and it doesn’t take much for sides to push right up or down the ladder.”