By Jonathan B Geddes

THEY are the brothers who will be “centres of attention” for Randwick in Saturday’s do or die semi-final against minor premiers Eastern Suburbs in the local derby at Woollahra Oval.

In one of those special rugby moments, Jonny and Nick Chan will play 12 and 13 for the Galloping Greens in the game their team must win to keep their season alive.

While 22-year-old inside-centre Jonny has been at Coogee all season, his older brother Nick, 24, recently returned to the club after a stint with the MLR in the United States.

The graduates of the famous rugby nursery St Joseph’s College played together for about 10 minutes in the Randwick backline last season before teaming up in the past month.

“It’s been pretty cool him coming back from the States,” Jonny told Rugby News. “I wasn’t sure where I was going to go but he jumped into the centres.

“And it’s been pretty special for mom and dad as well.”

Jonny said he and Nick have a good understanding and a bit of chemistry on the field which comes from that special bond between siblings.

“We play pretty similar and I probably base a lot of my footy off him,” Jonny said. “I know how he plays and I talk to him about training and he gives me tips.”  

When Nick joined Randwick after leaving Joeys, Jonny then followed a few seasons later.                    

“Jonny has been with us all year and has done really well,” said Wicks coach Shaun Berne.

He is making up for lost time after being sidelined during the season with a knee injury.

“We’ve had peaks and troughs performance wise but he is a big reason why we have won more games with him in the team than we have lost,” Berne said.

Nick was training with the Waratahs at the end of last year and was in the squad that played the Kubota Spears in Tokyo in November 2024.

NEIGHBOURHOOD FUED

JONNY said last Saturday’s 31-7 win third-placed Hunter had given the team a big boost heading into Saturday’s showdown.

“And we got a good win over Easts at the start of the year on the Anzac round,” he said. “The boys are training with confidence and can take a lot of confidence into this weekend.

“And obviously Woollahra being a fast track suits our game.”          

 Adding extra spice to Saturday’s game is that it pitches the traditional adversaries against each other in the battle of the east.

Chan said that the feeling between the two sides was genuine.

“There has always been a rivalry ever since coming through Colts and it definitely shows on the field with sometimes a bit of physicality,” he said. 

“They are No.1 for a reason, they are a good team, it is a big game and we are excited.”

Berne, who had a long career as a Wicks player, said: “Whenever Randwick play Easts there is always a good rivalry there, a lot of the boys know each other because of the location. They might have gone to school with each other or played against each other for years.”        

BATTLE HARDENED   

RANDWICK head into this weekend’s fight for survival well prepared.

“We’ve faced that the last two weeks, we’ve known we were playing for our lives,” Berne said. “We were in sixth place on the ladder and to keep our destiny in our own hands we had to win.    

“It was a good experience playing finals type footy for the past two weeks.”

In that period Randwick beat Manly 20-5 followed by last Saturday’s win over Hunter.

As it turned out, if Randwick had lost either of those games Gordon would have taken their spot in the top six and their season would now be over.      

“I think it has definitely given our team some confidence going into this game knowing we are capable of playing good quality finals type footy,” Berne said. “It’s been good the way the team has responded.”

Berne said Randwick is finding momentum at the right time of the year after a challenging season with injuries where he had had to use 53 players in first grade, which included 26 or 27 debutants.

“I don’t want to use it as an excuse but that’s where we are,” Berne said.

“I said to the boys a few weeks ago ‘we’ve got five games to win and we win the comp’. We’ve done two of them now and we’ve got three to go.”

The resolve amongst the players was demonstrated during halftime against Hunter with the scores locked at 7-all. Berne told the team to go out and fight for every bonus point with the season on the line.

“They went ‘forget that, we are going to go out and win this’. They didn’t want to get into the finals by bonus points.    

“I said ‘great, that is the reaction I want from you guys, fire up, go out and play well’ and they did,” Berne said. “They went out and won the second half 24-0.”