Shute Shield winning coach John Manenti has taken the reigns at Sydney Uni and is planning to drive the Students back to the top of the competition by reducing the structure around his young group.

Uni finished eighth last season, but seem to be one of the teams all rival coaches are talking about ahead of round one.

Overview with John Manenti: 

“I played the back half of my rugby career at Uni after I played at Wests, so it’s nice to be back and I’m excited for the challenge. There’s a fair bit to do here but I feel like we’re heading in the right direction,” Manenti said. 

“We want to get back to our winning ways. 

“The focus goes to first grade, because everyone sees that as the flagship team, but the challenge is to get the whole club back firing and producing good boys coming through colts so they’re ready for grade and then for some, hopefully on to professional rugby. 

“It’s a really young group and I think there’s a lot of guys there that have probably have ended up playing first grade or second grade before they were ready, on the back of that youth.

“That would serve them well in the sense that they’ve had some experience, but from an expectations standpoint these guys would feel like they’ve played first or second grade the last couple of years and that’s where they should be. 

“The reality is that’s probably because it’s such a young group and they were provided opportunities before they were ready.

“If you look at Warringah and Easts, they’ve done very well over the last few years and have had an average age of 28, whereas our average age last year was 22, so there’s a fair bit of experience that sits between 28 and 22.

“On the back of that, something I’m already being challenged on is injuries because they’re not resilient enough yet with their training age and I’m pushing them pretty hard. 

“We’ve got a fair injury toll considering we haven’t yet played a game of comp footy.

“In fairness, Uni was once the benchmark club which meant you didn’t have to do too much to get people wanting to play here. Other clubs have improved and done a lot of work to make sure they’re competitive and have good programs.

“Maybe we got a little bit relaxed about that, thinking we were always going to be able to do that. 

“We’ve been challenged and good on the other clubs for doing that. 

“But now we’ve got to respond and fight hard to make ourselves the premier program in the Shute Shield and probably the country.”

2025: 8th

Ins: Harry Press (New Zealand), Darcy Breen (returning – MLR), Jack Regan (QLD/Ireland), Olly Parkinson (New Zealand), Phoenix Kairamu (New Zealand), Sosaia Moala (Gordon), Papi Sevele (returning – Western Force), Isaac Fonua (Kings), Eddie Poolman (returning), George Poolman (returning), Lameki Namoa (Gordon), Harry Potter (returning), Iestyn Galton (Wales), James Macgregor (Eastwood), Ollie Harvey (QLD/Aussie 7s). 

Outs: Mali Manukia (Western Sydney), Dane Terekia (Warringah), Brad Amituani (France), Toa Harris (Western Sydney), Sam Harris (retired), Elijah Leota (retired). 

What sort of rugby will we see from Sydney Uni this year? 

“We’ll be a lot less structured compared to how Uni have played recently,” the coach said.  

“I’m not big into structure, I know we need to have some but I’m hoping we’ll be a little more instinctive around how we play.

“We’ve worked really hard to break that highly programmed mentality the players have, so they can just try to play a bit. 

“As a result we’ve probably been a bit loose, so we need to find the right middle ground. 

“We’ll be playing plenty of footy, trying to transition well and stick to some of the Uni principles on good set piece and good defence, which has been a staple of the club for most of their successful years.”

Player(s) to watch: 

“I think Lukas Ripley has been pretty good through the trials and preseason training, so I think he will certainly be someone to look for.”

Who will Sydney Uni play in the grand final this year?

“Easts and Rats are well set up. They’ve certainly got most of their squad back and will be tough to beat.

“Easts are going to be out for vengeance after not getting the win last year so it’ll have to be one of them.”