Northern Suburbs coach Simon Cron thinks his side will need to improve by at least twenty per cent this season if they are to win back-to-back Shute Shield titles. The Shoreman won 13 straight matches at the back end of last season to claim the club’s first premiership in 41 years, however Cron expects the challenge will be far greater this season. “If we play exactly as we did last year, we’ll lose. We’ve got to evolve,” the coach said. “It’s hard to put a measure on it, but I think we’ll need to be at least 20% better than we were last year to win it again. We’ve got to keep getting better and find new ways to be innovative, we need new guys to step up to improve our depth and mentally we need to be tougher.” Following one of the tightest Shute Shield competitions in history last year, Cron admitted it was difficult to know what to expect from a number of teams ahead of the start of the season, particularly those with new coaches. “It’s probably going t