2014 Season Preview: Eastwood

by Paul Cook –

The strides taken by the Eastwood club since coach John Manenti took up the reigns halfway through the 2010 season are there for all to see – and admire. Four Minor Premierships in a row, two Grand Final appearances and one Shute Shield Premiership with 1st grade, while the club as a whole has contested six of the 16 grade finals during that time, including all four – a club record – last season.

To have done so on one of the smaller budgets in the Shute Shield only makes the achievements all the more impressive but Manenti isn’t one for back-slapping. While justifiably proud of their success in 2013, he also remembers that the Woodies only went home with one of those four potential trophies and also suffered a humbling 50-6 defeat at the hands of a rampant Sydney University in the season’s showpiece final.

With the squad relatively intact, the return of a couple of recent crowd favourites in Tom Alexander (back from long term injury) and try machine John Grant (from a stint in rugby league) and the loyal support of a passionate and boisterous crowd at fortress TG Millner behind them, you wouldn’t bet against them being there on the final day of the season once more. Rugby News caught up with Manenti for the lowdown on the Woodies’ hopes for the season ahead…

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Last season saw you guide 1st grade to the Grand Final for the second time in three years after earning the club’s 4th Minor Premiership in a row. You didn’t come away with the Premiership but all in all, you must have positive reflections on 2013?

“It was a very good season for the club. When you get over the bitterness and disappointment of Grand Final day, the reality of it was we had four teams in Grand Finals, we were Minor Premiers, we were runners-up in the club championship so we had plenty to crow about and plenty of success. No question, Grand Final day didn’t go our way and we were a bit disappointed with how we played but you could argue that had we played the way we can, would it have still been enough? I’m not sure. For who we are and what we have, we did a very good job last season.”

With all four grades into the Grand Final, 3rds getting up and 1sts going down to a very good Sydney Uni side, I would imagine the off-season wasn’t never going to be a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, more the need for a few subtle tweaks?

“There’s things which we knew would be issues towards the end of the year at the business end of the season and some of those things we’ve tried to address but essentially, we’re a team that trains two nights a week and there aren’t many of those in the Shute Shield. We give a few incentives to blokes who are playing and winning in 1st grade but we’re not a wealthy club and we can’t give blokes much outside football opportunities.

“From that point of view, we’ve tried to fix a few things and mainly, that’s been on the training paddock to be honest, not so much off it but we’ve had a few guys that have retired or guys that have moved away for work and we’ve looked at those spaces but again, essentially we’re relying on our third graders to become second graders and second graders to become first graders and that’s been one of the strengths of the club in recent seasons.”

John Manenti has overseen four Minor Premierships
in four years since he took charge at TG Millner
Photo: SPA Images

You generously tweeted congratulations to Uni after the Grand Final but also offered a friendly warning that Eastwood were coming for them – are you confident that you go into the new season with the systems, the personnel and the know how to do exactly that this year?

“I’m confident in what we’re doing. I think we play a pretty good brand of footy and I’m certainly not reinventing the wheel, just trying to do a few things better and make a few adaptations to where we are and I think we’ve got enough quality there to be a top three team and beyond that, you need a couple of things to go your way. One of them being luck in regards to injuries and player availability for higher rep team selections and we also need to keep our training attitude right and keep working hard and knowing that if we do all those things, that we will put ourselves in a position to possibly play a Sydney Uni or someone of the like on Grand Final day but at this stage, we’re all on zero points with a lot to do.”

You’re starting your 4th full season in charge, is the club where you want it to be or hoped it would be when you took over?

“I don’t really have a huge, long term vision. I took over in mid-season of 2010 and we had a reasonable run of it then and we’ve been at the pointy end of the competition since and I think consistency in staying at the top is actually quite a difficult thing to do. We’ve been doing that for a period of time now and that’s a testament to a lot of people around the club, certainly not just me, there’s a lot of people that have put in around the joint. I’m happy where we’re at, we’re very much a community club and at times I think we do punch well above our weight but, at the same time, I do expect that we do stay there and be in a position to challenge for the silverware.”

With the ‘tweaks’ that you wanted to make in the off-season, have their been any specific elements of the game you have sought to improve upon in training?

“Just parts of the game that are evolving anyway such as the breakdown, which is becoming a more significant part of the game than it was three or four years ago, so we’ve certainly had a focus there in the off-season as well as the usual aims to be fitter, faster and stronger. We want to play a high tempo game and to do that we’ve got to be fitter but no, we haven’t worked on one specific area that we thought was really poor. It’s more a case of trying to turn second graders into first graders or developing our own depth and working hard on our individual skill sets more than we have done in the past and hopefully, that will improve the individuals but also improve the collective as a result.”

There’s an earlier start to the competition this year, a couple of extra rounds and a six team finals series – are you happy with the changes?

“For the finals series I am. It’s being a bit biased but I’ve always felt that having been Minor Premiers for a few years, it’s a bit odd that a team that can lose more games than they win all season and finish 6th, 7th or 8th, can still beat you in a one-off finals match and that could be the end of your season, so I think it’s a better system now in the sense of rewarding performance.

“It doesn’t really worry me if the players play 12 games, 14 games, 20 games or whatever it is, it is what it is and you get given the draw and you get on with it. If we had the perfect home and away and we played everyone, it would be nice but then you’ve got to find another however many weeks to add on and with the NRC coming in and the fact that you need a few trials before the season starts, we’d be starting the season on February 1st and finishing on Christmas Eve! There’s always going to be somebody who’s complaining when you don’t play everyone twice but I’m not too fussed about it – you tell me what the rules are and we’ll play by them. I would have liked a weekend off in there somewhere though!”

Eastwood: Ins & Outs

The NRC arrives at the end of the year, what are the pros and cons of this competition for club rugby?

“At the end of the day, it’s another tier of rugby but I’m probably a little bit frustrated that it’s not a club competition. They’re calling it the National Club Championship but it’s not really a club competition, it’s a diluted Super B competition of sorts really. I would like to have seen a pure club competition where the traditionally stronger clubs from the Shute Shield got an opportunity. For sure, have a promotion and relegation factor to it so that those clubs are not in for life but I would liked to have seen Uni, Eastwood, Manly and Souths as the top four clubs last year put forward instead. They represent four different zones of Sydney and I would have liked to see them take on the two or three best clubs from Queensland and Perth and Melbourne and wherever else was going to be involved.

“From a pros and cons point of view, we’re going to have a number of players that are going to get an opportunity to show their wares at the next level and it might help them go to Super Rugby or overseas. I think the footy will be good and the reality is that when the Super Rugby players come back to fill spots they will lift the standard of the guys they play with but I’m not sure enough club players are going to get enough opportunities to really make a significant change development wise in the short term.”

So you have a concern that it may not end up achieving what it was set out to do?

“Well, I’m not sure what it is exactly setting out to do. I mean, it’s trying to put a second market in place to have something to take to the negotiation table for the next TV deal for rugby, that’s essentially why it’s been rushed through but is it there to develop more players or give them more football? If you’d made everyone playing Super Rugby return to their Shute Shield team or their Queensland Premiership team, you could have had the same thing without the cost or exercise and just improved the standard of rugby off the back of it and it would have affected a lot more players improvement wise by having these players come back.

“There’s two sides to every story but I just don’t see a huge development. Sadly, I think some of the franchises will do it really well and promote their own people and their own staff but some of the other franchises aren’t necessarily going to do that and they’re going to go outside their own ring to try and find people and I think that defeats the purpose of the competition in terms of development as well.”

With the Super Rugby final only two weeks before the Shute Shield grand final this year, those clubs with Super Rugby players will have less access to them depending on the relative success of each state. Can we expect a more level playing field across the regular season as a result?

“I think so. Effectively, the Perth, Melbourne and Canberra players who are all going to be playing for the NRC teams based in those areas will all have 10 days, a week, two weeks off or whatever after Super Rugby to start preparing for the NRC, so I don’t think those guys will return to Sydney. Brisbane players, well, there’s not really any that affect us anyway, I would imagine Lachie Turner will have to stay and play up there, so that leaves the Waratahs and I hope I’m not getting ahead of myself but if they’re not playing semi-final football it’s gonna have to be down to a fair form reversal or a bad run of injuries, so I don’t think you’ll see anywhere near the number of Super Rugby players returning that we’ve had in previous years.

“Realistically, if they haven’t played any part of the club season up until the last two weeks of the finals, they shouldn’t be entitled to play in a Grand Final anyway, not from a football point of view but from the point of view that some other kid who has played all season is going to miss out on a spot because Benn Robinson becomes available on Grand Final day for example, so it shouldn’t happen anyway.”

Tom Alexander was on the cusp of Super Rugby recognition before injury robbed him of 2013.
Manenti expects him to return with a vengeance
Photo: SPA Images

What trends, if any, do you think we might see appearing in the way the game is played or approached by teams this year in regards to law interpretations – particularly at the breakdown?

“I don’t know. I think the willingness to play football and throw the ball and move the ball and play the game seems to be on the increase – I think the Shute Shield has always had a greater rate of that than Super Rugby – but now we’re starting to see the Waratahs starting to try and shift the ball and play a bit more and that can become infectious. So, probably more so than rules and regulations, I think there’s just a general realisation that we’ve got a responsibility to entertain and if people are going to come down to TG Millner on a Saturday afternoon they want to see us throw the ball, score some tries and be entertained. We have a responsibility to promote the game and that’s the best way to promote it rather than having somebody sit in the pocket, kick it to corners and driving a rolling maul over the line you know.”

Players to watch out for in 2014?

“I think Cameron Mitchell’s ready to have a bit of a standout year, he’s been around for a while but he’s hitting this year fitter and stronger than he has been in past years. Tom Alexander, after missing all of last year through injury will be a real weapon for us once he shakes off a bit of rust. He’s so much fitter and stronger than he’s ever been and the year before he got injured, he was probably knocking on the door of Super Rugby. He’s not the most skilful bloke in the world but he’s tough and hardworking and ruthless at the breakdown, so I expect him to have a fair impact.”

After the highs of last year, what is a successful season for Eastwood in 2014 – four Grand Finals again, a 1st grade Premiership or the club championship?

“I suppose from a selfish point of view, a 1st Grade Premiership but the reality is, we’re a community club and if you could win a club championship it would probably take 1st grade winning a Grand Final to do that and everyone being very strong around it. Let’s put it this way, if you won 2nds, 3rds and 4ths and 1st grade were there or thereabouts and you won the club championship, you’d have to say that was a pretty good year but we all judge ourselves on the flagship team. You can be successful without winning a Grand Final but at the end of the day, that’s the big prize. It’s going to be a very even competition this year, I’m not seeing a lot of teams that are going backwards but I’m seeing a lot of teams that are going forward.”