Norths head coach Zak Beer believes a slow start ultimately cost his side a finals spot in an increasingly competitive Shute Shield.

The Shoremen finished strongly, winning seven of their final 10 matches and playing some of their best rugby of the season, but Beer says the bonus points dropped early in the year proved costly.

Overview with Zak Beer:

“The Shute Shield’s getting tighter and tighter. The teams at the bottom of the ladder are getting better, and anyone can beat any other team on their day, and we really saw that throughout the 2026 season.

“For us, this was a stark reminder that you need to start fast in this comp, which we’ve done in the last few previous seasons. But our start to 2026 and building the cohesion over the year probably ended up costing us in the long run.

“We finished strongly by winning seven of our last 10 games and played some of our best footy in that last month, heading into the business end, but finished with a reasonable tally of wins and losses, not quite enough on that tally to get into the top six.

“At the end of the day, the bonus points that we left out early on in the year ended up costing us.”

What are the steps to improve heading into next season?

“I think the benefit of having good cohesion in our coaching group, particularly coming off some good successful years recently, is we know there’s a recipe to achieve success in this comp.

“The benefit that we’ve got is we can compare the differences between the last few years and the 2026 season, and there are some really clear areas that weren’t quite up to our usual North standards, which we’ve outlined.

“Having already sat down with the vast majority of our top squad face to face for postseason reviews, there’s a real eagerness, hunger and sharp focus from the boys to get back on the grass and get back hard at work, and get back to where we were towards the top end of the ladder the years previously.”

Which of your players do you think can take their game to the next level?

“A guy who’s come through our Colts pathway, I think he’s really stamping himself as one of the premier players and one of the premier midfielders in the competition.

“A guy like Josh Barr, he’s towards the top end of defenders beaten, post-contact metres, line breaks and line breaks created, and he’s only in his early 20s.

“There is the new generation at Norths with: Josh Barr, Marshall Le Maitre, Max Burey, Henry O’Donnell, and Henry was in our leadership group this year.

“I see absolutely no reason why he couldn’t perform at the next level, and I think you can expect there’s a laser focus in his eyes to get even better over summer.

“He’s already hard at work in the gym. There’s no reason why you won’t see him go to another level in 2027.”

What are you expecting in 2027?

“We’ve seen the comp squeezing it tighter and tighter. The recruitment across the comp has been interesting, and you can see that there’s a handful of clubs with the larger budgets who are managing to get the lion’s share of the top end of players who are being shopped around by agents on the market.

“I think where the real needle movers for the rest of the clubs, including ourselves, is how we can develop talent and identify talent that is maybe sitting behind some of those recruits that other clubs are not getting a run, give them an opportunity to showcase their skills in a good environment, and realise their potential.

“The comp is great to watch in the sense that, as we saw last year, any team can beat anyone on their day, and there seems to be more and more interest building around the Shute Shield, and I feel that’ll continue in 2027 and beyond.”