While the battle of the beaches will steal most of the spotlight this weekend, there are a number of intriguing Shute Shield matches in round seven.

Easts host Sydney Uni on Ladies Day and Eastwood play West Harbour in matches that should help fans gauge where teams are at heading into the middle rounds of the season.

Southern Districts v Gordon

Southern Districts overcame a slow start to steamroll Easts in the closing stages and claim their first win since round one this year.

“That gave us a lot of confidence. We haven’t been too far off in all of our games this year but it was still a massive effort to come back from two tries down on two occasions to get what was a much needed win,” Souths coach Matt Barr said.

Despite losing four straight matches, Souths have picked up six bonus points so far this year and could jump into the top six with a win over Gordon at home this weekend.

Former Scotland U20s No.10 Ben Chalmers will make his run on debut for the Rebels and partner prodigal son Waldo Wessels in the halves, while Angus McGrath has been named at inside centre in another new look Rebels backline this week.

“It’s really important that we continue to improve and back up last week’s performance against Gordon so that we can start to build some momentum,” Barr added.

Gordon struggled to contain the big West Harbour forward pack last week and fell away from their game plan in the second half, according to interim coach Kolose Feaunati.

Despite their tough start to the season, Feaunati said the group was confident that they could turn things around, starting this week against Souths.

“We’re just focussing on our individual jobs. Mental toughness is key for us and we need to get our skills and execution right,” the coach said.

“If we can do that, we have no doubt that we can beat Souths this weekend.”

Eastwood v West Harbour

Eastwood caused the upset of the round last weekend, beating Warringah 22-12 at TG Millner and while plenty of opposition coaches took note of the surprise result, Woodies coach John Manenti isn’t getting too far ahead of himself.

“It was nice to win, but it means little if we can’t consolidate this week,” he said.

“I stand by what I’ve said, we have a long way to go until we can be considered premiership contenders, but we are showing some positive signs.”

Waratahs hooker Hugh Roach is expected to return for Eastwood and add more aggression to the Woodies pack, something Manenti thinks his side will need plenty of this weekend when they face West Harbour.

“West are very strong and they can retain the ball for long periods of time. Their side is filled with powerful ball runners and they’ll take plenty of stopping.”

West Harbour backed up their strong performance against Norths with a comprehensive win over Gordon at Concord in round six.

“Our set piece was much better against Gordon so we had a lot more time with the ball last week. That’s something we’ll need to do again this weekend,” Pirates coach Todd Louden said.

“Moving forward we are focussing on evolving our overall game shape and we want to put an even bigger emphasis on our defensive systems.”

French-bound prop David Lolohea hasn’t been named to play against the Woodies, but West Harbour will still have plenty of size up front.

“We need to be up for the arm wrestle against Eastwood, games like this are usually tight so we need to stick to our game plan.”

Eastern Suburbs v Sydney Uni

The competition’s two biggest improvers this year face off in an intriguing battle on Ladies Day at Woollahra Oval on Saturday.

Easts looked to be in control for most of last weekend’s match against Southern Districts, but couldn’t match a desperate Rebels side in the closing stages.

“I thought it was a bit of a missed opportunity,” Beasties coach Pauli Taumoepeau told Rugby News.

“I said we needed to be at our best to win and defensively we weren’t and they made us pay.”

French recruit Jean-Charles Fidinde will start his first match in first grade at hooker for the Beasties, while Alex Newsome has been named at fullback to face a Sydney Uni side playing with plenty of confidence.

“Rob (Taylor) has them playing a pretty expansive game. They’ve been able to score plenty of points to date so they’d have some confidence in that area.”

Sydney Uni claimed another big scalp in round six, running through Manly in the second half to claim a 45-13 win.

After missing the playoffs in 2017, the Students are now tipped by many as favourites to win the competition this year but Rob Taylor said his young side isn’t looking too far ahead of themselves.

“We haven’t really talked or thought a lot about table position, we’ve just stayed focussed on our performance,” he said.

“Easts have won four and lost two games to quality sides, they’re a team to be respected and I certainly think they’ll be in the top six at the end of the season.

Saturday’s clash pits the competition’s best attacking side against the competition’s best defensive side but Taylor said his side’s focus has been internal this week.

“Without being cliche, we’re still trying to improve all areas of our game, both technical and tactical. We’re still coming together as a new team around a new philosophy.”

Manly v Warringah

Northern beaches derbies rarely disappoint but interestingly both Manly and Warringah head into tomorrow’s clash on the back of disappointing losses in round six.

The Marlins were outplayed by an in form Sydney Uni side according to Billy Melrose and will need to produce a far better performance to challenge the defending premiers.

“Losing a key playmaker an hour before a game is never part of the plan but from then on Uni deserve all the credit,” Melrose said.

“If you’re not winning the contested areas in this competition, you’re done and that’s what happened last week. We were outplayed.”

Melrose has shifted Sam Lane to flyhalf for Saturday’s clash and named Nick Holton at inside centre, while Jordy Reid will play his first derby in a number of years at No.8.

Like the Marlins, Warringah were also outplayed in round six and will be looking to bounce back when they travel south to Manly Oval.

“Last week was quite disappointing. We now know that we can’t win games when we lead the competition in turnovers, that needs to change this weekend.”

Despite last weekends results, Coleman said his side was still preparing for one of the toughest games they’ll play this season.

“The emotion and the internal importance of a derby game makes recent form fairly irrelevant,” he said.

“They’ve got plenty of quality players and an experienced coaching staff so I’d say they’ll probably have a few tricks up their sleeve for this weekend.”

Northern Suburbs v Parramatta

Norths helped Shannon Fraser take bragging rights back over the Harbour Bridge last week after the Shoreman beat Randwick 28-12 at Coogee Oval to keep their unbeaten start to the season alive.

Despite that, the former Randwick coach still wasn’t completely satisfied.

“I thought at times we played some quality rugby last week and I was pleased with the number of opportunities we created,” Fraser said.

“We did lack accuracy and composure on our edges at key moments though and I think we left plenty of points on the field, which is disappointing but fixable.”

Second placed Norths sit eight points ahead of Parramatta on the Shute Shield ladder, but Fraser was still wary of the unpredictable Two Blues.

“I think they’re a very underrated team. They carry well into the defensive line, have a good capacity to offload and they play unstructured possessions as good as any team in the comp.”

Parramatta had a bye in round six and coach Paul Hardwick said the squad spent the week off trying to close the gap between the best and worst rugby that they’ve played this year.

“The week off gave us time to reflect on a substandard performance against Easts and I think that’s made the guys really hungry to prove themselves against a benchmark side like Norths.

“Norths are strong right across the park and we’ll need to stay in the arm wrestle for the entire 80 minutes, rather than for 20 minutes here and there.”​