New Warringah coach Darren Coleman is fuming following the release of what he considers to be an “uneven and unfair” 2017 Shute Shield draw.

The NSW Country Eagles NRC coach and former Eastern Suburbs mentor told Rugby News the current draw doesn’t give all sides an equal opportunity to qualify for the playoffs and has suggested the Sydney Rugby Union base the draw on the previous seasons results.

In an 18 round regular season, all 12 Shute Shield sides play each other once before the mid year bye in June, and then play seven return fixtures ahead of a six team finals series.

Because all teams don’t play each other twice, Coleman believes some sides have a significant advantage over others.

“If 18 rounds is the magical number that we’re come up with, regardless of when we start or finish the season, there is always going to be seven return fixtures, making it impossible to be perfectly even, but out of the seven teams you play twice, you’ve got to have a more even spread, based on last year’s results, of strong and weak teams,” Coleman said.

Following the mid year bye, Warringah play Penrith in round 12 before facing six teams that finished in the top seven last year in their final six matches.

“If you base it on last year’s rankings, Easts have the easiest draw along with Randwick, Uni and Wests, down to the hardest draws – Eastwood, Manly and Warringah.

“Easts and Randwick play three of the bottom four teams from last season in those final seven rounds, some of the other sides play just one.”

While Coleman acknowledged the SRU have to accommodate a number of external factors when creating the draw, he said a results based system would level the playing field for all clubs.

“If you ranked every team from 1-12 based on last year’s results, you could create a more even draw in those last seven rounds when every result is really important,” he said.

“I know every season is different and teams can get better or worse from year to year, I also understand derbies have great meaning and financial gain, but at the moment it seems some teams will have a far easier end to the season than others and that could determine who qualifies for the finals.”

Sydney Rugby Union president David Begg said he understood Coleman’s frustrations, but added that it is almost impossible to keep all clubs completely happy.

“There are several factors that impact the development of the draw, including and not limited to ensuring that no club is scheduled home or away for more than two straight rounds, incorporating historic fixtures such as local derbies and considerations of club requests for particular opponents or date preferences based on ground availability,” Begg said.

“One of the most critical elements that the clubs take into account through their requests is the opponent for their home fixtures with the view of ensuring they’re are able to make revenues from attendance.

“Creating a ‘perceived equity and fairness’ draw model that meets the requests and requirements of the clubs and the Union is just not possible.”

Coleman, who has coached an NRC team and a Shute Shield side for the past three seasons also weighed in on the SRU’s decision to schedule the Shute Shield grand final on the same weekend that the opening round of the NRC is expected to be played.

“I work in both competitions and they are both great competitions, I value them both equally and they both have a really important place in Australian rugby. How they can’t come up with a compromise that suits both competitions just astounds me,” he said.

“We saw last year, particularly with the NSW sides, we all got a two week prep and we were all a lot more competitive.”

The 2017 Shute Shield season begins in just over 10 weeks on April 1.