After one of the most memorable and tightly contested Shute Shield seasons in history last year, we caught up with Sydney Rugby Union president David Begg to discuss the upcoming season and hear his views on the future of rugby in Australia. How thrilled were you with last year’s finals series? It was a perfect storm with lots of well supported clubs playing one another and a few local derbies thrown in on top. The weather was perfect, it was well supported by channel seven and CRTV and in the end it was a great advertisement for club footy. People have asked what we’ve got planned for this year but I don’t think there needs to be too much evolution. I think if we can replicate that, the rugby community is going to be very happy. There are a couple of things we are trying to do and these are things we spoke about 12 months ago. We’d like to see more rugby played in country regions. There are three games going out to the country this year and we’d like to encourage