by Paul Cook –

The scenic seaside suburb of Coogee will be no place for the feint hearted this Saturday. On a day when the entire country will come together with our neighbours across the Tasman to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the fateful ANZAC landings at Gallipoli, a complete re-enactment of the landings will be performed in front of an expectant crowd of some 10,000 people on Coogee’s foreshore, in what should be a fitting and emotional tribute to this nation’s bravest souls.

What is hoped for is that many of those present choose to stick around for an afternoon of footy at nearby Coogee Oval as Randwick take on Eastern Suburbs, providing a suitably swollen audience for one of club rugby’s fiercest derbies. While there should be no churlish comparisons between the game of rugby and the horrors of war, a sporting battle that sees two local rivals go toe-to-toe in search of bragging rights, should imbue plenty of fighting spirit and hopefully, one heck of a spectacle for the Coogee crowd to enjoy.

If you’d taken a straw poll across most club rugby followers at the start of the season, chances are they would have foreseen Easts as being in the driving seat coming into this clash, such was the aggressive off-season recruitment and desire to progress at Woollahra. But when 1st Grade kicks-off at 3pm, it is a resurgent Randwick that will instead hold sway, four wins from five seeing them currently occupy 4th position on the ladder, while the Beasties can only look up at them from 8th, having recorded just the one victory by comparison.

Both clubs are under a new regime, and with Shannon Fraser taking up the reins at the Wicks and Darren Coleman with Easts, the derby clash has another twist in it’s tail as two-thirds of the inaugural NRC coaching team of the NSW Country Eagles find themselves on opposite sides of the fence. The Intrust Super Shute Shield draw has thankfully ensured that there will be two Eastern suburb derbies this season but the friendly rivalry in the coaches box began a couple of months ago.

“We had a pre-season trial and it’s one-nil to me but it’s the one that doesn’t count though!” laughs Fraser. “We’ve been regularly exchanging text messages with a bit of banter since and with the next encounter on ANZAC Day, I’m sure they’ll be marching up over the headland to Coogee to knock us off but we’ll have something to say about that.”

Coleman feels that the Eagles connection, which also sees many of the Country players pitted against each other with squad places up for grabs later in the year, adds another spicy element to what is already a traditionally feisty affair.

“We’ve got each other home and away during the season and they’re both going to be Super Saturdays, as in all grade games played at the one ground, so it should be good,” he says. “There’s now a lot of guys that know each other from the Eagles experience last year and they’ll be competing for Eagles spots this year so we should see plenty of contestability in that and we’ve been trying to promote that from both clubs. We want to really make it a spectacle and draw some big crowds and get a lot of local passion back into the derbies.”

Darren Coleman (l) and Shannon Fraser (r) will be putting their NSW Country Eagles affiliations to one side on Saturday as they coach against each other

Having worked together so closely with the Eagles and achieved relative success – Mark Giacheri joined Fraser as an assistant to Coleman as the trio guided the side to the NRC semi-finals – I wondered if the fact they have both been working with each other’s players and were familiar with each other’s coaching styles was an advantage or disadvantage?

“I’m sure Shannon had to conform to a lot of my ideas last year within the Eagles so I’m pretty sure he’ll have a few of his own ideas he wants to try,” Coleman posits. “I don’t change too much from year to year, I tweak a little bit so if there’s any advantage, he probably knows my ideas a little better than I know his and I would imagine that what he does with them is a little different to what we did with the Eagles. He’s a highly credentialed and experienced coach and they’re a super strong club, their colts depth and quality is phenomenal now.”

“It probably cancels each other out,” Fraser offers. “’DC’ and myself are similar coaches in a way so it’ll come down to the one and two percenters in the group in how the result goes on the day. He’s pulled together a pretty good squad at Easts and while I’m sure he’s a little disappointed with some of the results so far, when you’ve got a new group and new combinations, it takes time. It’ll make for a good little battle of the East that’s for sure!”

Both agree that the success they achieved with the Eagles provided a fair degree of self-confidence ahead of their new roles.

“Absolutely, it was a really positive lead in,” says Fraser. “Myself, Darren and Mark were all on a similar page regarding the way we wanted to play and what we wanted the players to get out of the experience because it was about the players enjoying their football as well as winning. Winning is important, we understand that, but it’s all about the players enjoying it. Getting exposed to that early on and getting some success in what was an exciting and new competition certainly did make the transition into Premier club rugby that little bit easier.”

“It probably does reaffirm that you must have done something right but as I said, I don’t change too much from year to year, my style is my style and the team either responds and does well or they don’t and the board sacks you,” deadpans Coleman.

“I’m happy with how last year went with the Eagles but this is a whole different animal. There’s a different time commitment the players can put into the sport and we’re representing a completely different organisation. It’s a long season and each week there is that feeling of anticipation from about Wednesday onwards when you think you’re going to absolutely smash your opponent on Saturday and then you either love that feeling in the changing room for 10 minutes after the win or beat yourself up for the next few days if you lose!”

Suffice to say then that Coleman may be a tad battered and bruised this week after last Saturday’s result and more worryingly, performance, as the Beasties went down 31-10 at home to a rejuvenated Northern Suburbs. A rare win over Sydney University in round two has now been rendered almost meaningless by losses to Gordon, Manly, Souths and Norths. A red card early in the piece against the Shoremen certainly didn’t help their cause but a sanguine coach took stock of the bigger picture at the final whistle.

“I think the sending off was inconsequential, we were poor, full stop,” he says. “I thought the first half we didn’t really execute well and we’re just a team really lacking confidence at the moment. We’ve played two good games out of five and we are what we were last year, which was inconsistent.

“We’re on a pretty big low at the moment, that’s two really bad performances in a row, two performances where we’ve embarrassed the club. However, it’s a really good challenge. I’ve never been in a position like this – one and four – I’m not sure about the players but it will be a good test of my character and the team’s character to see how we get out of it.”

The famous Coogee Oval will be looking to host a bumper crowd on ANZAC Day for the ‘battle of the East’

Easts’ troubles do not leave Fraser feeling any more confident about a win for the Galloping Greens. He rates them as a side, he rates the coach he’s facing and as far as he’s concerned, all bets are off when the whistle goes. There is no greater danger than an opponent with it’s back to the wall.

“It’s a local derby so I don’t think you put any past performances or the current situation or the ladder into the equation, it’s a game in its own right,” he says. “In many ways Darren’s starting with a new group as well and he’s had a draw that may not suit what he’s trying to do. I don’t doubt that they’re improving and I don’t doubt that they will be pushing to be in the finals chase come August.

“As a result, we’re not expecting to play a side that’s not going to put the effort in, we’re expecting to play a side that come in to the game wounded in some regards and they’re going to want to fight for a win. We’re expecting a tough contest, they’re going to be desperate and I think that’s going to translate into the game. We’re at home and coming in off a performance we’re not entirely proud of either so I think it shapes up to be a pretty good contest.”

That below par performance came away to bottom side Penrith, a game that many thought would be a lay-down-misere given the Emus’ porous defence in the first four rounds. But as Fraser explains, the Galloping Greens got more than they bargained for when they travelled to the foot of the mountains.

“Credit where credit’s due, Penrith came out very enthusiastically and did extremely well. Conditions-wise it was a very heavy track, which played into their favour a little bit because we wanted to up the tempo and play quickly and there were a few stoppages as well which put the shackles on us. In saying that, we left a few points out on the field but respect to Penrith, they defended very well and possibly caught us a little bit by surprise. The result was an honest reflection of how both sides played.”

The win backed up three previous victories over West Harbour, Parramatta and Warringah, which had provided a perfect antidote to the opening day’s 40 point loss at the hands of champions Eastwood. While Fraser had already referenced the potentially damaging effects that an unfavourable draw can have on a fledgling side in terms of Easts, who in fairness have already faced four of the current top six, he has no complaints about the fixture list his new charges were dealt, at least not yet.

“There’s no hiding the fact that the draw has allowed us to grow and build and improve and definitely having a few home games and being at our own ground and in front of our own crowd has made things a bit easier for us,” he explains.

“But while the first half of the season is pretty friendly it’s going to be difficult at the back end as we play last year’s top five sides twice, which will be challenging.

“We’re better than we were at the start of the year, we’re a lot more confident in the way we’re playing and we’re coming together off the field a lot better, which has been a big part of our focus. We’re pretty pleased with where we’re at but we’re also under no illusion that over the next four rounds we face four of the top six sides so, we know that the challenge is ahead of us. We’ll just take every game as it comes and try to improve week-in, week-out.”

Clarrie Moore forms part of an impressive Beasties scrum, arguably the biggest positive of their season so far

If Easts are to upset the form book on Saturday, it’s a fair bet that their scrum will be well to the fore. While the backline struggles to click – they average under 17pts per game – their lineout continues to misfire, and their restarts have been far from perfect, the work of the forwards when it comes to packing down has been one hugely bright ray of sunshine.

“Our scrum is a strong point, it’s a dominant factor,” Coleman agrees. “It demolished Gordon in round one and it got the better of Sydney Uni in round two. The Souths game in round four was an anomaly and that was because of personnel – our tighthead went off after 10 minutes and our reserve tighthead wasn’t there – but it’s a good scrum. I’ve coached different game plans and different game styles but we’ve got some holes in certain positions in certain skill sets and we’re trying to find a way around that. But our scrum is solid.”

“It’s certainly going to be an area to test us,” says Fraser. “We’ve had quite an inconsistent scrum, we’ve been very dominant at times but not so in others and from what I’ve seen of Easts, they’ve been pretty solid in their set-piece and pretty solid in their scrum. It’s something we’ve certainly focused on this week because we’re under no illusions that it’s an area where we’re going to have to work really hard.”

Whatever the result, it goes without saying that both men will be the first to congratulate the other at full-time. I offered them both a final word before they set off to fine tune their preparations.

“Besides the Eagles connection/rivalry I’ve ensured our boys haven’t lost sight of the fact that the Easts versus Randwick rivalry is one of the fiercest in footy,” says Coleman. “We hope we put in a performance that will make the Old Boys and supporters proud of this group that presently represent the club. That said, I look forward to taking my winners skim banana smoothie from Shannon at our Eagles staff meeting on Monday!”

Fraser’s response?

“I’ll have the final word on Saturday!”

Game on gentleman, game on.

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Randwick (1-15)

Toa Asa, David Vea, Vuni Fifita, Dave Parsons, Will Munro, Sam Figg, Jack Johnson, Mark Baldwin, Auvasa Faleali’i, David Horwitz, Latu Latunipulu, Kuki Ma’afu, Andrew Kellaway, Chris Taripo, Tom Coupland.

Eastern Suburbs (1-15)

Sione Kolo, Clarrie Moore, Jake Ilnicki, Fergus Lee-Warner, BJ Edwards, Tyrone Viiga, Sam Stitcher, Tala Gray, Angus Pulver, Henry Hudson, Malakai Watene-Zelezniak, Charlie Clifton, Kotaro Matsushima, Warwick Percival, Alex Newsome.