After falling just short against Northern Suburbs in the 2016 Shute Shield decider, Sydney Uni were uncharacteristically inconsistent last year and missed the playoffs for the first time since 1998. Club stalwarts Tim Davidson and Tom Carter stood down at the end of the season, giving new coach Rob Taylor a chance to inherit a young Students squad with plenty of up and coming talent. Overview with Rob Taylor:  "I’ve been happy with our preseason. We haven't played as many games as we have in the past and that’s given us more time to take a breath really and focus on a handful of certain areas. We’ve just given ourselves a bit more time to cover off what we feel we need to do before we get into the grind of week to week matches," new coach Rob Taylor said. "We had a group head over and tour Japan. It was a volunteer tour, I didn't go myself, but it was an opportunity for guys to put their hand up regardless of what grade they played and the guys that did go over had a