By MARK CASHMAN

After a breakout season last year that saw Gordon win their first Shute Shield title since 1998 backrower Tom Silk knew it was coming.

Silk was one of the Highlanders’ best throughout that wonderful run to the 2020 premiership under Darren Coleman, but it did put a fairly large target on the lanky open side breakaway’s chest.

“Every ruck there’s always an elbow in my face and stuff (like that) but that’s all right,” Silk told Rugby News in the wake of the Highlanders 47-27 win over Randwick at Coogee Oval on Saturday.

“I have noticed it a bit, there’s a fair bit of niggle (directed at me) this year but I’m just trying not to worry about being targeted.

“I’ve just been concentrating on my roles and doing my bit to help the team win and play the game I normally would.”

The 22-year-old Silk was close to Gordon’s best against the Galloping Greens scoring two tries and making a number of critical line breaks off some deft passing from his centres and flyhalf.

His ambition is to pick up a professional contract somewhere and the weekend’s trip to Coogee would not have done that ambition any harm.

The win see the Highlanders jump into fourth spot on the competition ladder after what was a rough start to the year that saw them lose to Northern Suburbs in Round Three and cop a whole lot of injuries.

But as Silk stressed the combinations are starting to come together and “it’s building well”.

“We knew it was going to be tough going to Coogee but the idea was to build on the the last minute win over Southern Districts last weekend,” Silk added.

“As a team we haven’t been executing as well as we should and I think we did that on the weekend, particularly at set piece.

“The backline gelled well (under debutant Nav Lokotui) and everyone played their role.”

Gordon base their game around a more than solid set piece and their attack from first phase is up there with the best teams in the Shute Shield.

Saturday was the closest I have seen them be the side that they were last season. They just kept working away at scrum and line out and ran the ball when it looked on.

Randwick coach Ben McCormack reckons they aren’t as good as the 2020 version.

“But at the same time they had a pretty exceptional roster last year,” McCormack said.

“However they’ve got the ingredients to be a top four side again and fight for the premiership. They’ve got a good set piece and they are physical in the forwards and there are lots of quality front rowers and backrowers there.

“Silk was very good. We didn’t help ourselves there though as we gave him some pretty easy avenues to go through.

“He came into the spotlight last year and had a break out year and this year he’s just going on with it.”

This game was a classic Randwick-Gordon clash – lots of points, plenty of niggle and some scintillating skills show by both sides.

“Defensively we put in a fairly ordinary effort and we made some pretty basic errors in that space,” McCormack added bluntly.

“Gordon were good. They brought quality first phase attack and set piece that we knew that they would but we just weren’t good enough to stop it.

“There were some blokes on our side that haven’t played a lot of first grade and came up short, but they will learn from that and use that experience to understand where we need to be.”

One of the better efforts of the afternoon though came from Waratahs flyhalf Will Harrison who played off the bench for the Tahs on Friday night at the SCG and made himself available for club the next day.

“He’s just burning to play footy,” McCormack said.

“It’s says something about Will’s character that he wanted to do that. It was just a shame that with being on limited minutes he came on when Gordon had got the upper hand at scrum time and he didn’t have too much front foot ball.”

IMAGE: ANDREW QUINN / GORDON RUGBY