By MARK CASHMAN

In a world where data is king, the numbers in and around Southern Districts’ 2020 Shute Shield season tell quite a story.

The Rebels finished just out of the playoffs in seventh place on 35 points, but along the way collected a few significant scalps including an extra-time TV thriller over Sydney Uni at Uni and a tidy win over eventual grand finalists Eastwood at home early in the season.

But if we dig a little deeper into those numbers the enormity of what the club achieved in the circumstances augers well for their future under the guidance of head coach Todd Louden.

Louden used 54 in first grade throughout the abbreviated season with 31 of those debutants. Throw in the fact that reserve grade used 65 players and that’s one hell of a churn of personnel at Forshaw.

But according to Louden that season you hope you never have again has Souths in a good place as they ready themselves for 2021.

“I suppose at the end of the day we just ran out of troops,” Louden said of the high injury toll.

“Depth in critical positions killed us and as you would expect we have had a close look at the number of injuries that we had.

“What that showed was that the serious ones were either high impact injuries or concussions and pretty much out of our control.

“That was frustrating in many respects because there are things that you can do to manage many of the soft tissue issues.

“We play a very physical style of game and that obviously was a factor in how things panned out but it also demonstrated that we needed to improve our depth in some critical areas.

“We’ve gone about that quite strategically and brought people to the club that will not only add to what happens on the field but also off it.

“The notion that good people make pretty good rugby players is what is driving our recruitment strategy.

“In all my conversations it’s becoming apparent that our program is being seen as a place where you can work hard and achieve things.

“We’ve had a close look at prop, lock, flyhalf and the outside backs as areas where we need to bring in players to bridge us across the next season or so.

“That will give our colts a chance to find their feet in grade while at the same time enable them to learn off people who have been there and done that.”

Kiwi prop Leigh Hughes who has some Mitre 10 Cup experience with Counties Manukau and Bay of Pleny has jumped on board as has Ryan Menzies, an outside back with some sevens experience with the Queensland side.

Fred Dorrough, who has had time overseas recently and was at Randwick is another who is at Forshaw and training hard.

The club has been one field since then end of January with sessions on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights

The Monday sessions are significant and often involve input from the club’s leadership program which has been put together by sports high performance expert Chris Sinclair.

“It’s important that we have a different voice at times and Chris has really challenged the guys about their decision making on the field,” Louden added.

“The sessions throw real life scenarios and get them to decide what is the right way to go about things with the pressure on.

“The one we worked through last week involved Daly Cherry-Evans talking to the Queensland State of Origin side about the agreed standards when they are in the in goal after a try had been scored on them.

“We’ve all learnt a lot from the sessions and I am sure that as the season matures you will see the difference in a lot of the little things that add up to winning.”

One thing is for sure they will have to hit there ground running once the season is underway with a tough front end to their draw and byes at times that aren’t perfect.

But as Louden said the draw is the draw and you’ve just got to find a way to deal with it.

IMAGE: MALCOLM CHUCK