COMING off the back of what many are saying was the most successful season in Shute Shield history, the Sydney Rugby Union are considering some major structural changes that it hopes will make their competitions even better.

Heading the list of change is a major revamping of the colts competition that has been dominated by Sydney University for much of the past two decades.

SRU chiefs are keen for their clubs to run two U20 colts teams and also run an U18 side under their banner and use their points qualification system and all other levers to make the competition as even as possible.

Clubs for many years have run three colts teams – two U20 side and another playing U19 laws.

Sydney Uni have won 16 of the past 17 first grade colts competitions and this year they defeated Eastern Suburbs 63-15 in the grand final as well as taking out the second grade title and featuring in the thirds.

There has been considerable unrest throughout the rest of the competition for some time about the lack of an even playing field at colts level particuarly when it comes to recruitment from the schools.

“I don’t want this to been seen as an attack on one particular club,” SRU president Dave Begg said in reference to the Sydney Uni colts juggernaut.

“In some ways it is but I must say that Uni will benefit from this in the long run.

“We are getting a situation where we have our best young players coming from school where they haven’t had too many meaningful contests and not having to work their way through games to manufacture wins.

“Many of them are then coming to colts at the major clubs and the same situation is being repeated and you can see it having an effect when they start to play some under age representative rugby.

“What we want is an even and diverse competition across the board and I think you will find all the clubs will benefit from this in the end.”

The clubs are being surveyed at the moment and Begg said a recommendation would be put to them before the end of the year.

A club like Penrith and many others in Sydney’s west would benefit from this enormously as the Emus have a state championship winning U17 side that would conceivably stay together and join the district club in coming seasons.
But there is some disquiet out there about the proposals with some clubs saying that the mechanics of having the two colts and the U18 side would be a huge burden with the Working with Children Check certificates needed for under age coaches and volunteers.

Begg said the union was also looking at tweaking the Shute Shield finals series and how many clubs that would be involved.

At the moment six teams play in the finals series but there was some criticism about the way the playoffs were structured.

Several proposals are being considered including the classic five team series which would give the playoffs an extra fixture.

Another one is a six team format with teams that finish first and second having the first week of the finals off before playing in grand final qualifiers.

“And if you look at the quality of the team that finished seventh and eighth this year I don’t think that you could rule out an eight team format,” Begg added.

Sydney Uni finished seventh, their first time of the finals for closer ton two decades and West Harbour who were one of the form teams of the second half of the home and away season.

The Shute Shield grand final got more than 190,000 eyeballs on the coverage and there are hopes that the game can be on the main channel next year.

That may not happen in 2018 but Begg will be pushing for it to be there in 2019 through the people at Club Rugby TV.