Northern Suburbs came agonisingly close to winning last year’s Shute Shield premiership, falling just short against Randwick in the 2023 decider at Leichhardt Oval.

The Shoremen have been the most consistent side in the competition over the best part of the last decade, but haven’t won a title since the club’s drought breaking premiership in 2016.

“Our sustained success is something we’re proud of. Over the last nine seasons we’re the only club that that hasn’t finished outside of the top four,” Norths coach Zak Beer told Rugby News.

“We’ve played in three grand finals since 2016 so we’ve been consistent and in a position to capitalise.

“It takes a lot of hard work to get to a grand final, then a lot of things on the day need to go right to convert all that hard work into a premiership and unfortunately that didn’t happen for us last year.”

Beer said last year’s 17-15 grand final loss to Randwick left a bitter taste in his players’ mouths and they’ve used that as motivation over summer.

“A key theme that I picked up from all of the one-on-one reviews I did with players at the end of last season was that they all wanted to come back stronger in 2024 and that’s what you want to see as a coach.

“All 12 teams set out to win a premiership every year, but that’s an outcome,” he said. 

“We’ve intentionally narrowed our focus on trying to be the most complete team we can be as players, coaches and support staff and I think doing that can set us up for success.”

Norths lost just four matches leading into last year’s grand final and won 12 of their final 14 games.

While the club didn’t finish the season with silverware, there was still plenty to celebrate at the end of 2023.

“Our job is to develop and promote our players to help them get to the next level and we were thrilled to see Max Burey pick up a long term deal with the Western Force,” Beer told Rugby News.

“Henry O’Donnell progressed from an academy player with the Waratahs to a full time contract with the Force as well.

“Seb Cameron got an opportunity with the Aussie 7s, and is now training with the Waratahs over summer alongside Reece Mau’u.

“Reece has been one of the most dominant outside backs in the competition for a few years now and it’s a great nod to the Shute Shield to see him pick up a contract over summer and be on the verge of playing Super Rugby.”

While Beer admitted he didn’t know how much of his rep players he’d see through the early parts of 2024, he said he remained confident that his side would be in the mix again towards the backend of the season.

“Our retention has been strong, not many players leave Norths, which I think is a real positive of our program.

“This season in particular, a number of clubs have tried to lure our players with different incentives to play elsewhere, but our jersey and what we’re building here has exceeded that.

“We’ve been able to retain the majority of our 2023 squad, then we’ve been quite selective in the type of character and the type of player that we’ve added to our squad and we’re excited to see what a few of those new Shoremen can do next year.”

Norths open their season with tough clashes against Sydney Uni and Eastwood, then face Randwick in a grand final rematch in round five.

Beer said he wasn’t too worried about the draw though as he didn’t think there would be many easy games this season.

“2022 was the tightest competition in recent history and 2023 had to be almost as tight,” the coach said.

“What I find really intriguing about the Shute Shield is that there are massive disparities between the different clubs across Sydney on and off the field but the competition remains so close and competitive.

“It’s a brilliant competition and I don’t think it’ll be any different this season. We’re already looking forward to getting on the field against Sydney Uni in round one.”