by Paul Cook –

There’s just three weeks to go until the 2016 Shute Shield season kicks-off and three teams left to cover in our look back at each side’s brickbats and bouquets from 2015. Next up – Sydney University.

Having dominated Sydney club rugby for a decade with eight Premierships in nine grand final appearances between 2005-2013, Sydney University had been aiming to restore themselves back onto the throne in 2015 after bowing out a week shy of the big dance the season before. However, seven losses in the regular season and back-to-back defeats in the finals left them out of contention for a second year in a row. The question is, have these last two years been merely a blot on Uni’s pristine copybook, or are we seeing the end of an era for the Students?

A Uni club legend as a player, Tim Davidson has stepped into the head coaching role for 2016 after cutting his teeth as an assistant to Waratahs-bound Chris Malone last time out. In keeping with his no-nonsense on-field approach, he didn’t dodge the tough ones when Rugby News caught up with him recently to discuss the state of play at Camperdown HQ.

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Give us a brief overview of last season from your perspective?

 Tim Davidson: “I think where we ended up was probably a fair reflection of our consistency throughout the season and that was probably the biggest thing from my point of view. We just struggled with consistency and that comes from experience, it comes from having experienced players in your team and we just didn’t have that luxury last year and we weren’t able to win the tight games when it mattered. When you’re coming into semi-finals football, you need to have the confidence that if it goes down to the wire, you’ve got what it takes to win a tight one, and we didn’t. But it was a massive learning curve for the team.”

Three losses in the first eight games is not dissimilar to some of the starts we’ve seen Uni have in recent years, before you typically come home with a wet sail. But the inconsistency shown across the year never really convinced that this side still had what it took to go all the way. Is that a fair observation?

“Yeah, it is. We showed in patches that we could beat anyone if we played that way for 80 minutes but that was our issue, we couldn’t consistently hold teams out for 80 minutes. We’d put in patches of 20 minutes and then focus on building that up to 40, and we had plans in place to get that perfect game going towards the end of the season but it didn’t quite work out that way. We were a little bit like a yo-yo throughout the whole year, we’d perform really well on occasions and then let ourselves down the following week by not being able to repeat the effort.”

Uni finished with seven losses in the regular season, including defeats at both West Harbour and Gordon, teams we just haven’t been used to seeing the Students lose to in recent years. You also had a close shave at home to Parramatta – can you put a finger on why?

“It would be interesting to see who we played the week previously for those games because you put an Eastwood, a Manly or a Warringah etc as the preceding fixture and you’re obviously putting in a fair effort and then struggling to repeat it. I think every team looks forward to playing Uni now because they know that if they knock us off it’s a huge win for them. I’m certainly not discounting the way those teams played against us because they played extremely well and deserved to win, but I think we were struggling to repeat consistent performances on a weekly basis and they capitalised on that and pressured us into mistakes that won them the games.”

Not so long ago, teams were almost beaten before they kicked-off against Uni. Has the club lost a bit of its aura?

“People talk about aura and things like that, I just think teams have got smarter and figured out how to beat us by playing a style of footy that mitigated our previous strengths and capitalises on our mistakes. It’s a difficult question to answer, I guess the answer should be yes because we got beaten seven times in the regular season and that hasn’t happened before. You hear around the traps that teams are talking about not fearing us anymore, that we’re just a regular team now. That’s both exciting and concerning at the same time; exciting because you want teams to think that and maybe underestimate us but concerning that they actually believe it too.”

Was the inconsistency down to player turnover; the tyranny of youth – you still have a fairly young squad; or simply a drop in available quality from previous years?

“It’s probably a combination of all three but I guess they were all controllable. We can control recruitment, we can control how we prepare the players and experience is something you either have or you don’t but I don’t see that at as an excuse. I don’t think we ever underestimated a side or didn’t give them full credit but in hindsight, maybe we didn’t prepare as well as we could have for some of those games. It’s a difficult one to put a finger on but I’m not going to use any of those three possibilities as an excuse.”

The club went through 56 players in 1st grade – only Randwick used more. That level of player turnover certainly can’t help on the consistency front?

“It’s difficult but, again, every team faces that and is exposed to that possibility throughout a season with injuries etc and you do need a bit of luck on your side. It’s just part and parcel of the game and everyone deals with it but it’s one more thing that can go against you. In order to progress through to the finals and a grand final, it certainly helps to have consistency in terms of selection. We didn’t have that as a luxury, but it is what it is and a lot of guys got some opportunities that they may or may not have had under different circumstances and that bodes well for the future of the club because they got a taste of what it’s like to play at this level.”

Chris Malone’s tenure at the club clearly saw Uni move away from the forward dominated game plan of old to a more expansive – and certainly aesthetically pleasing – approach. Playing devils advocate, has that shift of focus come at the cost of a lack of intensity up front, and a bit of that gnarly edge that is needed to win the tight ones?

“I think both styles are effective and you can’t really blend them – it’s either got to be one or the other. I wouldn’t suggest that any change in itself has come at a cost results-wise, I just think that you need a style of player to play to that style, and we potentially thought that we had the calibre of players at a certain skill level to be able to execute it, and we didn’t.

“We’ve potentially gone away from what we know but I think the direction that ‘Nobby’ [Chris Malone] wanted to take the club in has been proven to be effective. In 2013 we played a great brand of football and won the competition, in 2014 we lost in the semi-final by a point and last year, we were well beaten in a semi-final by Manly, so it proves that it can be successful and that it’s certainly not all doom and gloom. But if you want to continue to stay ahead, you’ve got to continue to evolve and change what’s been working for you previously. So we’ve been looking at our program and at how we can improve because we have to if we want to be there at the right end of the season going forward.”

Despite all these perceived negatives, Uni still finished 4th and made the finals off the back of a couple of impressive performances against Warringah and Norths. Did you as a coaching team feel the side had it within them to lift enough to win a Premiership at that point?

“We thought we were definitely heading in the right direction but we probably needed one or two more games to bed down a little bit of continuity. Deep down we knew we had the players and the game plan to achieve what we wanted but we also knew that if we came up against a Manly or an Eastwood, two teams that had been very successful against us previously, that it would be very tough. But if you’re not confident in who your players are or in the direction you are heading, then you may as well pack up your bags before they run out there. Against Manly early on in that semi-final, we showed glimpses of how we can play the game, we just couldn’t hold it consistently for 80 minutes.”

Tom Robertson produced some standout performances for the Students in 2015 – Photo: AJF Photography

It was no disgrace to lose to two fine sides that played pretty near their peaks on the respective days but were you disappointed in the manner of the successive defeats at Southern Districts and Manly that ended your season?

“Souths have beaten us three of the last four times we ‘ve played and they’re a fantastic side, so you can’t really beat yourself up too much when you lose to a kick after the bell. They’ve got guys who have played together for five or six years now so they are a very seasoned and experienced side and that experience showed in the way they finished off the game. Manly had been beaten just twice in the regular season when we played them and, like Souths, they had a lot of guys who have played together for four or five years and toughed it out. They had the nucleus of experience and they knew how to win games. We knew how they were going to play but they were very effective at doing it and very difficult to stop and full credit to them.”

Across the club there was a 2nd Grade Premiership, 3rd & 4th grade both finished in the top four but missed out on a Grand Final and all three Colts sides won Premierships – all of which added up to another Club Championship. No real signs of a fading dynasty there then?

“Exactly. Whilst our main focus is obviously on 1st grade, I think the results throughout the rest of the club have been exceptional. Both 3rd and 4th grade lost their semi-finals in the last couple of minutes so they were there or thereabouts and unlucky not to go on with it; 2nd grade were the surprise packets really, having lost by 50pts to Randwick a couple of weeks before the Grand Final, they rolled their sleeves up and got the job done when it mattered, which was very, very pleasing, and then the colts, who had had some mixed results during the season, did a fantastic job to come away with all three Premierships. 

“So, it’s easy to get lost in the fact that 1st grade didn’t perform in the way we would have hoped or liked but if you look across the results of the whole club, we had a very strong year. That’s the light at the end of the tunnel I guess, that the club as a whole is still performing very well.”

Player/s of the Year?

“David Hickey was a standout. His effort every week was phenomenal and he also came through as a very strong leader. I also look at guys like Matt Philip and Tom Robertson who developed really well across the year.”

Rookie/s of the Year?

“I’d probably say Matt Philip or Rohan O’Regan, I think they both have big futures ahead of them.”

Most Improved Player of the Year?

“Whilst he didn’t actually play in the semi-final against Manly, I think the most improved player would be Byron Hodge. For the first 10-15 rounds, he was our best player week-in, week-out – he’s got a terrific work rate. But, if I had to pick one who was there at the end, I’d go for Rohan O’Regan again.”

Players recognised at the next level:

Jim Stewart (Sydney Stars, NRC & NSW Waratahs); Jake Gordon (Sydney Stars, NRC & NSW Waratahs); Tom Kingston (Sydney Stars, NRC & Aussie Sevens); Jake Wainwright (Sydney Stars, NRC); David Hickey (Sydney Stars, NRC); Tom Robertson (Sydney Stars, NRC); Angus Roberts (Sydney Stars, NRC); Byron Hodge (Sydney Stars, NRC); Alastair Ryan (Sydney Stars, NRC); Tom Coolican (Sydney Stars, NRC); Matt Philip (Sydney Stars, NRC); Mitchell Whiteley (Sydney Stars, NRC); Henry Clunies-Ross (Sydney Stars, NRC); Matt Sandell (Sydney Stars, NRC); Rohan O’Regan (Sydney Stars, NRC); Aldy King (Sydney Stars, NRC); Richard Draper (Sydney Stars, NRC); Folau Faingaa (Sydney Stars, NRC); Chris Talakai (Sydney Stars, NRC)