By MARK CASHMAN

The combatants for the 2020 Shute Shield grand final have been settled with Gordon and Eastwood working their way through the rain and the wind on the weekend.

The Highlanders came home in the final 25 minutes to beat Eastern Suburbs 28-10 after earlier falling behind 10-3, while Eastwood came through a 100 minute thriller against Northern Suburbs with a 12-9 win.

Here’s how the games panned out.

GORDON V EASTERN SUBURBS

They call them the championship minutes, the final quarter of games, and Gordon showed that they have the will and the skills to make the most of them following their 28-10 win over Eastern Suburbs in the Shute Shield semi final on Saturday.

The Highlanders scored three critical tries in that time when their season looked on the skids and the Beasties had taken the initiative just after the halftime break and had edged out to a handy 10-3 lead.

That lead came through some nice work by Easts late inclusion, the Wallaby and Waratah Jack Maddocks when he snaked and bumped his way through the Gordon defence and managed to give space to Richie Woolf on the right edge.

Easts then had the chance to get even further out when Sam Shires found himself in space deep in the Gordon half but he was unable to get a pass away to his skipper and scrum half Jack Grant who was looming in support with a clear run to the try line.

But Gordon weren’t to be denied and they worked their way back into the game and started to get some pay from their kick and chase game, so well executed by Rodney Iona, Harrison Goddard, Brandon Quinn and Ahmu Tuimalealiifano.

Jack Dempsey and Tuimalealiifano then were able to add to the scoreline which at the end of the day probably didn’t truely reflect the difference between the two sides.

This will be the first time that Gordon has played in a Shute Shield grand final in 22 years and you’ve got to tip your hat to how far the club has come since they employed Darren Coleman as their head coach.

He has pushed and prodded the club to great heights and their club championship win was vindication of a great season in what has been a tough season all things considered.

“Yeah it was a lot tighter than the score indicated and I’ve got nothing but respect for what Easts have been able to achieve under the guidance of Pauli Taumoepeau,” Coleman said. 

“Easts have been dealt with a lot of adversity in this last few weeks and had a lot of wounded soldiers but they put up one hell of a fight on Saturday. 

“I thought our kick and chase game was exceptional thanks to our nine and ten. 

“Easts defended a few of our key launch plays very smartly so we had to find other ways. 

“We know when we string some fast footy together we are hard to handle. We got that fluency mid way through the second half and put on three tries in succession. 

“It’s been like that all year when we click for periods it’s great to watch  and the scoreboard ticks. 

As always we defended with heart and passion to keep a good team to the single try.” 

Easts coach Taumoepeau said errors and opportunities lost were the story of the match.

“We had an opportunity after going up 10-3 to extend the lead but it didn’t work out that way,” Taumoepeau said.

 “Gordon then went on a run for the last 25 minutes and we weren’t able to wrestle back momentum. 

“Errors and ill-discipline started to creep in and it then became a bit of a stretch.”

GORDON 28 (Ahmu Tuimalealiifano 2, Jack Dempsey, Joey Walton tries; Rodney Iona conversion, pen goal, Harrison Goddard pen goal) d EASTERN SUBURBS 10 (Richie Woolf try; Daniel Donato conversion, pen goal) at Pittwater Rugby Park.

NORTHERN SUBURBS V EASTWOOD

It was 3-all at halftime, 9-all at full-time and in the end it took extra time and all up 100 minutes for Eastwood to qualify for their first Shute Shield grand final since 2015 at a wind and rain swept Pittwater Rugby park on Sunday.

The Woodies beat Northern Suburbs 12-9 in a tense semi-final clash at Narrabeen to make their way through to the 2020 premiership decider against Gordon.

In terms of skills and sweeping movements that featured the first time these two teams clashed a little over a month ago, this game didn’t rise to any great heights, but it was off the scale in the tension and endeavour both these sides brought to the table.

Earlier in the day I had an exchange of texts with Highlanders coach Darren Coleman about his team’s win the previous day and his words were almost Nostradamus-like.

“Looking forward to watching Norths and Woods bash the hell out of each other in an over time thriller with lots of red cards,” Coleman jokingly said.

He was right about the overtime thriller and each of these teams bashing the hell out of each other but light on the cards.

Once again it was the keen game management skills of the Woodies favourite red head, Tane Edmed, who was able to make sure that his side was in the right part of the field at the right time.

On top of all that he was able to kick the penalty goals when the opportunity bobbed up.

But as we all know a good performance from a flyhalf is only as good as the time and space that he is given and the Woods had a number of special heroes on that front.

Skipper Pat Sio rumbled hard all day getting his side close or over the advantage on a day where every centimetres of ground counted.

Tim Anstee got some good line out ball on a difficult day while Matt Gonzalez knew where and when the possession he did get should be dished out to his No.10.

Fullback Chris Bell was grand ally for Edmed, coming in and shouldering a lot of the playmaking duties while his kicking game got his side out of a lot of threatening situations.

“It was just a war of attrition between two really good teams that wanted to play in a grand final,” Woods coach Ben Batger said.

“It won’t go down as football classic but anyone there will tell you it was as tense of a game as you’ll see.

“Due to the conditions we had to put away the fancy stuff so it then became about playing smart. 

“In attack you had to try and control field position while in defence you had to be disciplined. 

“We weren’t as good as last week but I thought our game controllers did a good job of not playing in our own half while in defence our skipper Pat Sio led the way constantly getting off the line.”

Norths did have their chances to ice the game with Angus Sinclair having a penalty goal attempt just before full-time and also during extra time.

But the wind that boomed in from the south west at Rat Park along with the sleeting rain was just too much to overcome and both attempts were pretty much on target but fell short.

“I probably knew I didn’t have the legs for the last one into the wind but I thought it was worth a shot. Unfortunately didn’t get it,” Sinclair told Lou Ransome on Channel Seven after the game.

“It was a tough old game of rugby and one for the purists but credit to Eastwood they probably just played a bit smarter. 

“It could have gone either way. We had our chances, they had theirs and they took them.”

Norths at times had reason to bitch about the way some of the 50-50 calls went throughout the afternoon but they preferred to reflect on a season where they made considerable progress under a new coaching group.

Earl Va’a did a superb job with the cattle at the club and in Zak Beer and Sape Misa there is lots of smarts and now some genuine experience.

EASTWOOD 12 (Tane Edmed 4 pen goals) d NORTHERN SUBURBS 9 (Angus Sinclair 3 pen goals) in extra time at Pittwater Rugby Park.

IMAGE: JAMES O’DONOHUE