Former Wallaby Owen Finegan says he is looking forward to working with the talented crop of young forwards at Randwick next season.

Finegan will assist Shannon Fraser at Coogee Oval next year and return to the club where he started his career.

“Yeah, it’s a really good opportunity. Last year was the first season that I hadn’t coached a senior team since I finished playing, so it is good to be back in senior rugby and back at Randwick where it all started,” he told Rugby News.

Randwick were the form team of the competition for much of the 2016 Shute Shield season, but dropped to fifth position late in the regular season and lost to Southern Districts in the opening week of the finals.

“That Southern Districts game could have gone either way, it was fairly tight, but Randwick have a good young squad with lots of exciting players,” he said.

“There is room for improvement though, so that is exciting. I don’t think we’ll need to reinvent the wheel, it’s more about trying to fine tune a few things.”

“I’ll be concentrating on the forwards, set piece, defence and the breakdown, which is so important to the game these days. Half the game is defence and every time you go into contact, the team that is more physical at the breakdown usually wins so it’s an important part of the game.”

Finegan said he watched a handful of Randwick matches this year and was impressed with what he saw.

“Their style, the way they are playing and their work ethic is really strong so we won’t have to throw the playbook out and start again. They’ve got good structures in place so hopefully we’ll be able to enhance a few of the things they are doing.”

Before joining the Brumbies for their inaugural season in 1996, Finegan played both colts and grade for the Galloping Greens and credited the club for much of his development.

“I know I came to Randwick from Waverley College and I wasn’t a great player. I had a few years in colts and probably still wasn’t great, but being able to go up grade and play with some really strong forwards definitely helped me,” he said.

“If you look at this year’s side, they had a really good mix of youth and experience, some former Wallabies, a few Super Rugby players and a couple NRC players so there is a strong group of blokes there, forwards in particular, that want to make it to the next level so hopefully we can give them that opportunity to become better footballers and better men.”

While Finegan said he was excited to work with the likes of Mark Baldwin, Sam Croke and Will Munro, the former flanker said he also has one eye on the next crop of talented juniors who he expects will step up into senior rugby next year.

“There were 40 odd colts that came into grade this year and similar numbers are expected next year. The colts program is going from strength to strength and they’ve been extremely competitive and won premierships which is a great thing.

“Those guys will come into grade with winning experiences as a group. It was 2004 when Randwick last won a first grade competition so there are guys at the club that have been there for 10-12 years and never won. Those colts players know what a winning culture is about so hopefully that will help.”

Finegan said he was impressed with the quality of the 2016 Shute Shield season and expected another tightly contested competition next year.

“It’s great to see strength across a number of clubs. Eastwood, Manly, Southern Districts, they could all probably beat each other on the day and Norths beating Sydney Uni in the grand final showed that. Most people would have had their money on Uni with all their experience so to have that balance across a number of clubs, it’s good for the Shute Shield and good for club rugby.”