BY MARK CASHMAN

We’re a little under a month out from the start of the 2021 Shute Shield season and the phone has been ringing hot with all the news and views from the greatest club competition in Australia. Here’s what we are hearing:

The popular match highlights packages that have been so well received in Stan Sport’s coverage of the Super Rugby competitions will be an integral part of the Shute Shield and the Hospital Cup offering.

Ten matches – six Shute Shield games and four Hospital Cup matches – will be covered live each week from Saturday April 10.

Each game will be covered by two cameras and a match caller meaning that there will be in excess of 13 hours of club rugby out there each week in Sydney and Brisbane.

Rugby News has been told that the coverage will build during the season and it would not be a surprise to see more than the four or five promised games on free to air television during the season.

Club footy in both Sydney and Brisbane are seen as major planks in driving people into the Stan Sport suite of offerings

All the final details are being ironed out now but you can expect some well known names to be involved.

Nine talent SEAN MALONEY and ANDREW SWAIN and others will be sticking to the Super Rugby but we are hearing that Rugby Australia who are calling the shots on on air talent have been inundated with hopefuls.

RA were hopeful that GREG CLARK would stay “calling fit” by doing some of the Shute Shield games but his schedule has meant that he cannot commit but will help out by mentoring a number of the callers.

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We’re hearing that GEOFF TOOVEY is settling in well as a skills coach at Warringah. He’s not trying to take over the show but is timing his input to perfection and it’s all being very well received by the young first grade group at Rat Park.

Not many know but Toovey had a crack at the 15-a-side game as a junior turning out for the mighty Allambie Jets and making his mark in a couple of rep teams as a centre before rugby league and the Belrose Eagles got their hands on ‘Tooves’

So what are his thoughts about life at Rat Park and the talent available?

“There’s a lot of youth there but not a lot of experience and I’m really looking forward to seeing the growth of these young guys,” Toovey told northern beaches colleague ADAM LUCIUS.

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There was a touch of the Freddie Fittlers when Northern Suburbs new head coach ZAK BEER took his first grade group through their annual pre-season camp at North Sydney Oval last weekend.

The Shoremen have headed out of town to bring things all together in the past but Beer, who has taken over from Kiwi EARL VA’A, felt that reacquainting themselves with the “best rugby ground in Sydney” was the right thing to do.

Because of COVID-19 and a number of other factors Norths spent the season at Bon Andrews Oval (the old No.2 Oval), at Rat Park and on the road and many of the current bunch haven’t played on the velvety and historic surface.

So they all took their shoes off and made themselves familiar with the vagaries of the great ground, the more experienced ones telling tales about the heroics of 2016 and other significant happenings of recent times.

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Rugby News would like to retract earlier comments attributed to Brian Melrose in a column piece about the northern beaches derby.

We quoted ‘Billy’ Melrose, now the boss at Gordon and for many years up to his ears in these derbies as the Marlins boss, that the Gordon v Norths was now the derby for the ages.

This wasn’t the case.

When talking to Around The Traps about current interest in our game Melrose said: “In 2020 the Norths v Gordon had been the biggest of the derby games due to their high finishing positions.” Melrose said.

Any comments about the success of Manly and Warringah were not accurate, Melrose said, and that he had “the highest respect for both clubs and their successes in recent years”.

For the record the beaches derbies fall on June 4 and September 21 and Norths and Gordon clash on April 21 and July 31.

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The most popular past time at the Western Sydney Two Blues at the moment is literally watching the grass grow.

There has been major progress on the new grandstand at Eric Tweedale Oval in recent months and the turf has now been laid.

The game against Randwick on June 19 has been slated as the first game on the new oval but that depends on whether the grass is ready for the rigours of a rugby scrum.

“I just love it when it buckets down with rain and then the sun shine,” Two Blues general manager CRAIG MORGAN said.

ERIC TWEEDALE is the oldest living Wallaby and is set to turn 100 during the course of this year.

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There a big things a foot this year for the Warringah Ratettes and International Women’s Day earlier this week saw us tip our lid to the club’s originals on our social media streams.

That has flushed out a number of great images from back in the day but we thought this one of the club’s first Jack Scott Cup winning team was worth a run.

A couple of locking recruits from the USA Chris Ross and Sara Colson made all the difference for coach ‘Noddy’ Sawtell and they beat what has been described to me as a “Wallaroo heavy” West Harbour side.

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This column is hearing that there will be a major announcement on the running of the Shute Shield in coming weeks. The move will add experience and make the best club competition in the southern hemisphere even better.

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Sincere congratulations to PETER SHERWOOD on the awarding of his life membership at Gordon recently. Sherwood’s one of the game’s great doers and I didn’t think I am exaggerating things here by saying that his work help save the Highlanders from going under in recent years. He was GM of the North Harbour Rays and is still involved at Chatswood Oval helping run the Friends of Gordon. It’s a well deserved honour!