Newly appointed Eastwood first grade coach David Telfer wants to capitalise on the success the club’s colts program has had in recent years to foster in a new era of Shute Shield success for the Woodies. 

Telfer ran Eastwood’s colts program from 2021 to 2023 and helped the club finish second ahead of both Sydney Uni and Randwick in the Eric Spilsted Club Championship this year. 

Now, he wants to develop those same players into first graders.  

“That’s definitely the plan,” Telfer told Rugby News. 

“I might be being a bit naive with that approach, but after chatting with quite a few Shute Shield coaches and professional coaches, I think it’s pretty clear that my main job is to develop players from within, ideally from juniors, into colts and then into first grade.  

“A lot of clubs are recruiting heavily and last year in particular, we saw a lot of overseas players join the competition, but I’d rather spend my time trying to turn our young players into first graders and that’s what I’m planning to do.”

Telfer and newly appointed Warringah coach Josh Holmes will both make the jump from colts to grade at their respective clubs next season but the coach said he didn’t think there was a great deal of difference in the styles of rugby played in either competition. 

“I’ve strategically put myself around quality experienced coaches over the years.

“At Gordon, I spent time with DC (Darren Coleman), then one of the main reasons I came to Eastwood was to learn from John Manenti. 

“I’ve also been an assistant coach at Eastwood and I’ve spent the past 12 months looking at the differences between grade and colts and I really don’t see anything glaringly obvious.”

Telfer said he feels he’s ready to make the transition and try to find a way to help Eastwood’s first grade side take the next step after consecutive preliminary final defeats in recent years. 

“Eastwood traditionally has been looked at as one of the strongest grade programs in the Shute Shield, but when you peal that back a bit, we haven’t won anything since 2015. 

“So I think we need to ask ourselves why that’s the case and then address that heading into 2024. 

“After chatting to both coaches and players, I think we can alter our approach to training from Monday to Friday. 

“Traditionally, Eastwood has has an older playing group, which is rare in the Shute Shield, and training was based around getting those players on the park each week. 

“We’ve still got that experience, but now, we’re a younger group so I think we need to work out how we can best utilise our Monday to Friday so that we can get more consistency on a Saturday.”

You could argue things have turned upside down at Eastwood over the best part of the last decade.  

From 2011 to 2015, Eastwood won three Shute Shield titles but very few players from those sides were picked up to play professional rugby, much to the frustration of former coach John Manenti. 

But in more recent years, the tide has turned and Eastwood is now one of the best represented clubs across the five Super Rugby and Australian Sevens squads. 

“We’ve got some really talented young players at the club and I know if I do my job and if they work hard, then they aren’t going to be here for much longer,” Telfer said. 

“That’s the goal and that’s the nature of the competition.

“I think Eastwood’s Shute Shield performance comes back to consistency more than personnel though. If we’re more consistent every week, then it won’t matter as much if we have two or three guys coming in our out of the side throughout the season.”

Telfer said he was expecting another tightly contested Shute Shield season in 2024, but in the midst of recruitment ‘silly season’, admitted it was hard to predict much more than that.  

“It’s exciting that there are a lot of new coaches for next season. The Shute Shield seems to go in a bit of a cycle like that.  

“I think with the success that Josh (Holmes) has had at Warringah, they’ll be strong again and they were a side towards the bottom of the ladder last year.  

“Joe (Barakat) is back at Southern Districts so they’ll improve as well. I think it’s going to be more of the same where almost every game is a coin toss and that makes for a really strong, exciting competition.”