By Mark Cashman

The Shute Shield will be front and centre when the Waratahs take on the Queensland Reds at Allianz Stadium on Friday May 31.

Northern Suburbs take their home game against the Manly Marlins to the big show in what should be an exciting start to a night of good entertainment.

The Tahs will also honour their Shute Shield links by playing in their respective club socks when they take on the Reds and there will be a juniors guard of honour for the two teams to run through.

That’s not the only time that the clubs will be on show – the Beasties will play the Hunter Wildfires at Allianz on July 20 before the Wallabies match against Georgia.

******

The two big derbies last weekend showed that there is a very strong heartbeat of the game in the Shute Shield.

Manly Oval was packed to the rafters for the big Northern Beaches Derby while over in Sydney’s east, there wasn’t too much elbow room at Coogee Oval as Randwick and Eastern Suburbs battled it away in a real classic.

In my mind the beaches derby still has that little something about it that makes it special and the 7500 punters that turned up certainly underlined that.

Crowd estimates at these games have sometimes in the past been “creative and generous” but Around The Traps believes that the 7500 number is pretty spot on.

Former Manly Marlins president, ex-top referee and now Liberal Party powerbroker Dave Begg backed that estimate. Enough said!

RA CEO Phil Waugh and NSW Rugby Chairman Tony Crawford were both in the stands last week and loved what they saw.

Manly are now working  to make the Anzac Day clash a permanent fixture.

******

The derby games can take a toll and it’s not unusual that the combatants in these big games can be a bit flat in the next round.

The Manly Marlins were hit hard by the game against Warringah with their skipper Angus Bell looking like he has done his ACL and that of course means that he is gone for the rest of the season.

The Marlins are also without the pure pace of Yool Yool for much of the season and that spark that is needed in the backline needs to be discovered.

******

The Two Blues have started the 2024 Shute Shield in robust style and Rugby News stablemate Jon Geddes came away from their win over Southern Districts at the weekend mightily impressed.

Now Geddes has been around for a while and seen most things on and off the rugby field but he was singing the praises of the Seuseu brothers Reece and Rilloy when we had our weekly catch up.

“They’re ready for the next level that’s for sure,” Geddes told Around The Traps.

“And from what coach Sailosi Tagicakibau told me they drive a lot of the good things at Granville on and off the training paddock and gym.”

There is a lot of the Ella brothers in these two and as Tagicakbau said they are ready to blossom in a fully professional environment

******

Lots of Shute Shield flavour to the Under 20 Rugby Championship being played out on the Sunshine coast over the next couple of weeks.

The Aussie charge will be led by head coach Nathan Grey assisted by Shannon Fraser who is doing some great pathways work at the Waratahs after time at Randwick and Northern Suburbs.

The Waratahs aligned youngsters are Jack Barrett, Ben Di Staso, Bryn Edwards, Aden Ekanayake, Olli McCrea, Hwi Sharples, Nathaniel Tiitii with Isaac Rumble with the squad as injury cover.

******

Like all of the Shute Shield clubs the Hunter Wildfires put out a steady stream of content on their social media streams but the video piece this week on the run-one debut of young Brendan Palmer was absolutely top shelf.

It took us behind the scenes at the jumper presentation in the sheds before the game last weekend when young Palmer was handed his jumper by his father Dan.

The piece then showed us snippets from the game including the 19-year-old Brendan scoring the opening try of the big win over Eastwood at Newcastle No.2 Sports Ground.

The bit though that really cut through in my mind was the comment from Palmer’s dad who said that Brendan had come through the colts system at the Wildfires and it underlined that you don’t have to head to Sydney to crack the big time – it’s in your backyard in the Hunter.

******

We brought you the unfortunate news a couple of weeks back that Southern Districts lock forward Sean Rigney had been struck down by illness.

Rigney picked up a Golden Staph infection that worked its way through his system to his heart, that will now require a surgery to get things back on track.

The big Irishman is a long way from home and family so teammate Alan Fitzgerald organised a GoFundMe page to help with all the costs associated with what will happen in the next few months.

Within days of setting ups the appeal there was pretty close to $30,000 in there but when Around The Traps checked this week there was $51,064.

That’s just awesome!

******

The Beasties would have been licking their wounds after the nail biting loss to Randwick in The Battle of the East at Coogee Oval.

They also lost one of their favourite sons last week with the death of Heamani Lavaka.

Heamani was renowned for his incredibly tough tackling style during his playing days, earning the nickname ‘The Hammer’.

So what better way to honour ‘The Hammer’ than to name the club hit of the week after the great man.

The first winner was reserve grade centre Ed Arnott who put an absolute bell ringer against Randwick at Coogee Oval last weekend.

It will be required viewing each week for the rest of 2024!

******

It’s still very early doors but Eastern Suburbs have garnered together a pretty handy lead in the race for the club championship.

The Beasties are way out in front despite their Shute Shield loss to Randwick at the weekend on 714 points.

Next cab off the rank is Northern Suburbs on 589 followed by Mall on 577 and Gordon on 561.

The Highlanders dragged themselves up the ladder by winning four grade and three colts games over Sydney Uni last weekend – now that’s something that doesn’t happen all that often.