By Jon Geddes 

NORTHERN Suburbs backrower Ed Timpson again stamped himself as one of Shute Shield’s brightest new faces following a spectacular solo try in his side’s  60-15 win over the Two Blues at North Sydney Oval on Saturday.

The 22-year-old Englishman capped an eye-catching display with his extraordinary five pointer 28 minutes into the first half when a Two Blues’ restart went just 1m over the halfway line.

A flying Timpson raced forward to grab the ball and sprint away, outpacing the defence to score.    

“The ball was going short, it was in the air for a while and I started running to it,”  he told Rugby News after the big win. 

“I heard shouts of ‘leave it, leave it’ and I thought ‘OK, I’m going to take it.’

“I caught it, I managed to beat a defender and it was just a leg race to the tryline. 

“But I was quite knackered after and the end of that first half was a bit brutal,” he admitted.

On and off the ball Timpson made a real impact against the Two Blues as Norths sent a strong message they have rediscovered their mojo.

He also set up a try for skipper Harry Burey with a great offload and gave the final pass for winger Carrick McDonough to cross for his third try.    

HARD WORK PAYS OFF 

AFTER beginning the year trialling in third grade, Timpson played round one in second grade and then in round two had half a game in first grade as a replacement. 

He had his first start in the top grade a week later when Luke Gersekowski was injured at training on Thursday before the game against Souths and has held a spot ever since – filling every backrow position.

“Ed Timpson is something special,” said Norths coach Zak Beer.

“People will be looking at the Norths team and say how strong our backrow is.

“It’s a real show of what a player can do if they put their head down and work hard and take an opportunity.

“And he has taken his opportunity when it has come, it’s definitely not a surprise.

“He has the ability to hit hard, he is close to the top of the comp in dominant tackles and he has shown what he can do over the ball with pilfers now.”

THE STUDENT GRADUATES WITH HONOURS 

TIMPSON played for University of Nottingham in BUCS Super Rugby, which is the highest level of university rugby in Britain and a potential pathway into elite rugby. From there he made the English Students team who beat the French Universities

He also played with Norths teammate, lock Tom Smith, at the Stirling Wolves who win the FOSCOC Super Series Championship (the Scottish Super 6) last November.

Timpson travelled to Australia with first stop Perth before linking up with Norths.

“Your biggest source of recruitment is people saying positive things to their mates,” Beer said. “It’s about guys speaking highly of the program.

“He came to Norths of his own accord after he and I had a chat.”

And Timpson said his rugby has been improving with every week at Norths. 

“This is definitely my best season and I have absolutely loved it here,” he said.

“I plan to be at Norths next season because I’ve been loving Sydney  … and it’s a great club and the boys have been so welcoming.”

One of his University of Nottingham mates was Randwick hooker Ben Sugars, who got called up to the Waratahs this season during their injury-crisis.

“I am hoping I could follow in his footsteps maybe, I just want to keep improving  here and see where I could go,” he said.

“If the opportunity arose I’d take it in a heartbeat.”

MAKING A STATEMENT

NORTHS decisive win sent a clear message that last year’s grand finalists are ready to challenge for the premiership again.

“We had that middle period of the year where  we had five of our six leadership group out injured at different stages,” Beer said.

“What that did was build a lot of character.

“The boys have been humming the last four weeks.

“Obviously we had a tight game against Gordon a couple of weeks ago, but other than that we are in our flow.”

Timpson said those little mistakes the team was making in the first half of the season have been fixed.

“You could see today finally everything was clicking for us,” he said.