The Sydney Rugby Union has sent a letter to all 12 Shute Shield clubs on Monday afternoon addressing recent controversy around the enforcement of the competition’s rules and regulations.

Earlier this year, Gordon were deducted two competition points after Super Rugby player Ola Tauelangi took the field against Norths in round 11 before being cleared to do so.

Gordon officials believed the required paperwork had been processed before the round 11 clash, but that was not the case and the club accepted a small fine and acknowledged their wrongdoing.

Since then, the spotlight has turned to Eastern Suburbs with several clubs asking questions around the ‘player points’ value assigned to several new and returning players at Woollahra.

The ‘player points’ system is a complicated beast but is in place to ensure fairness across the competition and to limit the number of representative players each team can field in a certain match.

In the simplest terms, a player’s ‘points value’ goes up if they play representative rugby and can be reduced for a variety of reasons, including if they are a local junior at a club; if they provide long service to a club or if they have ceased playing international or Super Rugby for a number of seasons.

Clubs are required to nominate a ‘points value’ for each player with this information visible to all clubs via a shared dropbox.

While Easts provided evidence to the SRU to support their allocation of player points, rival clubs have questioned this.

Before Friday, the SRU had allowed clubs to provide evidence of player’s representative histories from a variety of different sources but several sources used by different clubs contradicted one another.

Moving forward, the SRU will only accept evidence from one source - Opta Sports.

In a letter to all Shute Shield clubs, the SRU acknowledged a “short coming in the SRU Operations Manual in that no single reference source is specified for determining player points.”

Sydney Rugby Union general manager Peter Watkins continued in the letter with the following:

“During the investigation undertaken by SRU, Eastern Suburbs presented clear information in how they determined the player in question should be classified as a 1 point player in 2024.

“Whilst you may question if that was a reasonable assertion there is no doubt a legitimate, credible source that was used in their determination.

“This process uncovered a short coming in the SRU Operations Manual in that no single reference source is specified for determining player points.

“This shortcoming has been highlighted by a number of clubs that have altered their player points calculations following the edict from SRU on 19 July 2024 stating Opta is the only accepted source of information.

“Further, SRU do not believe Eastern Suburbs have gained any advantage as a result of their points calculation.

“SRU formed this view as a result of the player being reclassified as an 11-point player in accordance with the Opta information following Round 11.

“SRU undertook an analysis of all Eastern Suburbs games from Rounds 1-10 and at no time were more than 100 points fielded in any game.

“Secondly an assessment of the Round 11 game that was questioned, it is highly unlikely the result of the game was impacted by Eastern Suburbs player points calculations.

“Eastern Suburbs fielded 8 reserves, with the final two reserves of 6 points each taking the field in the final 12 minutes of the game when they had a substantial lead.”

“SRU considers every case of alleged divergence from the Operations Manual on that cases individual circumstances and determines sanctions in what we believe are in the overall interests of Premiership Rugby and fairness.”