Randwick started the 2026 season slowly before building momentum to finish fifth and secure a place in the finals.

Coach Shaun Berne’s side pushed Warringah all the way in their quarter-final at Rat Park, but two late held-up tries saw their season come to an end.

Overview with Shaun Berne:

“Statistically, we started 0-4, so I’d say obviously started slowly and then built momentum throughout the year.

“We then won 10 games and four and lost four from that point. So we finished fifth, and that basically sums up our season.

“We couldn’t quite get it done against a decent Warringah team at Rat Park in a quarter-final. We got held up twice in the last five or 10 minutes when we were behind by five, so our slow start probably hurt us in the end.

“Overall, there’s only one winner, right? The rest of us are losers, but that sums up Randwick. We started slowly, 0-4, did well to turn that around and build momentum to finish fifth ultimately, and that probably summed up our season.”

What is the focus at Randwick between now and round one next year?

“It’s probably a better preseason. Some things we probably haven’t done well enough there in preseason.

“It’s not by chance you lose four games in a row at the start of the year. Let’s put that down to pre-season, right?

“If we have a better, more intentional pre-season, we hopefully don’t start the year 0-4 again.”

Which of your players do you think can crack on to the next level?

“For us at Randwick, in terms of who can step up to the next level, we’ve had the first Colts champions the last two years back-to-back.

“So we’re developing local juniors that play a really high standard and also know how to win and play a great style of Randwick rugby.

“We’re trying to talk to those guys about them all coming through, and I almost don’t want to be unfair to any of them by naming names.

“Some guys came out the year before that we hope will kick on and have even better years. So Felix Turinui, Matteo Cleverley, alongside his brother who now comes out of Colts, Luca Cleverley.

“Johnny Chan had an injury-ravaged year, unfortunately. But he’s a slightly older guy, he’s played a couple of years at first grade now, so can he come back and have a better year with injuries and play even better.”

“There’s just so many. As I mentioned, Luca Cleverly, Tyler Maybery played a little bit of first grade this year and is currently on the bench for Super Rugby AU for the Waratahs. He’s gone back-to-back in the first Colts as a champion hooker.

“We also have an 18-year-old now at Randwick who’s also in the Super Rugby AU squad for the Waratahs. Even add Darcy Stanfield, Laurence Kiely, and Charlie Bird to all of that.”

“There’s a thousand names I’m throwing at you, but that’s the nature of the depth when you have back-to-back Colts first grade championships.”

What are you expecting in 2027?

“Hopefully, every one of the 12 coaches that you ring or people you speak to at each club, they want to go better than they did. We all want to. Maybe Ben Bagter doesn’t say that because he’s the winner ultimately.

“We’ve just got to go better at Randwick. We want to win.

“If I, as a Randwick person, am saying this without disrespecting anybody else, if we don’t win the comp, then it hasn’t been a successful year for Randwick.

“That’s my goal that I set for myself coaching down at Randwick, and so we want to get better.

“Then keep developing local clubs, local players. We want to keep developing guys to push them up into professional rugby, like Luca Cleverly and Tyler Maybery and Charlie Bird and these guys.

“That’s our plan, to go better than we did this year, which is to get out of a quarter-final into a semi-final, win that and win the Grand Final.”