Saturday marks the start of the second half of the Shute Shield regular season and things couldn’t be much tighter at this point of the year.  Incredibly after nine rounds, just one win separates the top four sides - Eastwood, Norths, Warringah and Sydney Uni.  The top four have established a six point gap on the rest of the competition, but below them just three competition points separates the next five sides from fifth to ninth spot.  It’s very early days, but at this stage it looks as though teams will probably need nine wins to be a strong chance of playing finals footy. Eight wins may be enough, but that would force a team to rely on bonus points to sneak into the playoffs.  The difference this year, is that teams with two byes in 2019 will receive five competition points for their second bye, giving seven teams a significant advantage over the other four.  Teams received no points for their first bye this season but with 11 teams playing in an 18 round co