By Mark Cashman

If you were around the Shute Shield in the late 1970s and early 1980s you’d have laughed along with Northern Suburbs lower grade winger Mick Colman who passed away last weekend.

Colman was Norths’ club captain at that time and his sharp wit informed and entertained many on and off the field, while his after match speeches were legendary – works of art in timing and reading the room.

No one was safe and it wasn’t unusual for fans to travel from other games just to hear Colman’s take on the game just played and the world at large.

Colman was a groomsman at my wedding some 40-plus years ago and it’s fair enough to say that the speeches were one of a number of highlights of the evening at the Roseville Golf Club.

He was one of those self deprecating types that were just great fun to be around.

At Norths, we always knew him by his nickname ‘Splinters’, that one acquired because he spent time on the bench for a fourth grade side that would go on to win the premiership in 1978.

His sense of fun was underlined by the sing-along song that he composed about a Norths’ club mate Rene Leveaux trying to break into fourth grade after a 100-game playing career in fives.

Sung to the tune of the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, it had some killer lines including: “He’d sit on the bench before fourth grade commenced. Saying give me a go I am Rene Leveaux.”

And of course the classic lyric: “On Friday drank no beer!”

Colman, 68, passed away with his wife Linda and three children around him in Brisbane after a lengthy health battle with a rare lung disease.

He wasn’t a smoker but as the end neared it took its toll and it was a brutal last couple of months.

Colman had a memorable 47-year career as journalist, the final 23 as a columnist for The Courier-Mail and Sunday Mail after he moved to Brisbane following successful stints with Sydney’s North Shore Times where we first crossed paths, the Sunday Telegraph, the Sun and Sun-Herald.

Highly-respected News Limited cricket correspondent Robert ‘Crash’ Craddock believed he was one of the most entertaining sports columnists of his generation.

“Cheeky, clever and proudly irreverent, Colman was one of a kind, that rare breed of piss-taking sports columnists who could made you choke on your croissant or laugh out loud,” Craddock wrote earlier this week.

“There were many readers who didn’t even love sport but loved reading Colman.

“If you saw – as you often did – someone giggling as they read the back half of the paper on a bus or train you never had to check the author. Colman had struck again.”

He never boasted about it but he also won a Walkley Award for a feature about World War II navigator Cliff Hopgood, who died when his Lancaster bomber was shot down over France.

The story triggered by a visit to a park with his young family and noticing a plaque on a rock saluting his memory.

Colman was fascinated by the story and would go on to write a book called ‘Crew’, detailing the lives of everyone on board.

It was among a library of books that he wrote, including a best seller with Fatty Vautin and a nicely crafted tome about Eddie Jones.

It’s just not going to be the same without him. Vale ‘Splinters’.

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I think it’s fair enough to say that the teams that will battle it out for the Shute Shield have been identified.

Warringah, Eastern Suburbs, Gordon, Randwick, Northern Suburbs and Manly are all pretty much locked in – it’s just a matter of working out the pecking order.

Warringah are in pole position to grab the minor premiership but the rest is up for grabs with only a win or two between second (Easts) and sixth (Gordon).

The great unknown may well be the alleged team points violations that may affect the Beasties and their bevy of talent.

The next month is sure to be interesting on and off the field.

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Well if you don’t blow your own trumpet, who will?

Three weeks ago Around The Traps heard that Tane Edmed was headed across the ditch for a stint with NPC side North Harbour.

North Harbour officially announced his signing earlier this week and although it might have been great for him to help along a young Eastwood side for the rest of the Shute Shield season it’s the best thing for his footy.

Edmed will be able to work on his game management skills and will come back for his Super Rugby Pacific pre-season a better and more confident player.

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Warringah stalwart Greg Gerrard, one of the Shute Shield’s champion blokes, has been recognised for his incredible contribution to schoolboy rugby by receiving the Manu Sutherland Medal.

The prestigious award is presented for outstanding service to Combined High School rugby.

“I was astonished when they read my name out and – it took me a moment to compose myself before I had to address my adoring masses,” he said.

“These awards given by your peers are the most valuable of all I think.”

Greg was already a life member of CHS Rugby and involved as a coach for 34 years.

Most of that time was spent at Narrabeen Sports High, just a stone’s throw from Rat Park.

Over the decades Gerg coached CHS Firsts, NSW Schools firsts and seconds, Australia A Schools and was assistant coach of the Australian Schools team for two years.

Among the local Narrabeen boys, he coached were future Wallabies Mark Gerrard and Pek Cowan

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Speaking to Hunter Wildfires general manager Stu Pinkerton earlier in the week and he spoke enthusiastically about the club’s scholarship program that clicks into gear next year.

Starting in 2025 the Wildfires Foundation will offer scholarships to the University of Newcastle to five (male or female) players.

It’s a formula that has worked well at a number of other Shute Shield clubs like Sydney Uni, Randwick and Gordon and in the Wildfires’ instance it’s aimed at colts players and those starting their tertiary education.

The aim is to consolidate the club’s playing group and move away from the top down recruitment process that has been needed to get things underway in the Shute Shield.

“We want to offer competitive and robust colts program that is interlinked with the university,” Pinkerton told the Newcastle Herald’s Dan Gardiner.

“It’s a holistic program that will include deuce action, networking and rugby – developing the person as much as the player.

The foundation is chaired Lake Macquarie Private Hospital CEO Sharon Rewitt and includes other Hunter business big wigs Bob Hawes, Kyle Loaded and Tony Calder Mason.

I reckon it’s going to work a treat for the Wildfires with getting into the Sydney real estate market so tough and of course it’s a great lifestyle up that way.

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The Manly Fillets newsletter is always well written and always informative and more often than not there is a gold nugget or two amongst it’s words.

The one that caught this column’s eye this week was the revelation that king of the Warringah Hillbillies Day Hawthorne was once a Manly ball boy.

There’s a good one for you!