There was a heap of player movement during the Shute Shield ‘silly season’ over summer and after five rounds, we’ve started to see a number of players impress in new colours. 

Here are the top 10 recruits at this point of the season. 

Tom Smith – Norths 

Scottish lock Tom Smith has made a tremendous start to his Shute Shield career at North Sydney Oval and has added more energy to an already impressive Shoremen pack. 

Smith has made the second most tackles of any player across the competition, only behind teammate Gary Bautz, and is strong at lineout time both in attack and defence. 

To confuse things, Southern Districts have also recruited a Tom Smith, but he’s only played two games so for at flyhalf for the Rebels. 

Pres Tufuga – Gordon

Former West Harbour forward Pres Tufuga has added more size and aggression to the Stags’ forward pack and has formed a nice combination with Milan Basson in the backrow. 

Tufuga was missing in Gordon’s loss to Easts in round two, but returned to help the Stags claim three straight wins. He has a crucial role to play against Randwick this weekend. 

Clayton Frans – Warringah

Big Kiwi backrower Clayton Frans was recruited by Warringah from Hunter to help add size, experience and aggression to the Rats pack and he’s done exactly that. 

The hard working back rower carries and tackles all day and has stolen quite a few lineouts for the Rats in the opening five rounds.   

Karl Main – Manly

While it was always going to be impossible to replace Zac Barnabas at Manly Oval, the Marlins found a winner in Scottish backrower Karl Main. 

Main is a strength and conditioning coach who is built like a brick toilet and does a mountain of work around the park. While he’s a very different player to Barnabas, he’s making his own impact in the Marlins’ forward pack.  

Jamie Adamson – Easts 

Another hardworking backrower from the UK, former GB Sevens forward Jamie Adamson has been impressive for the Beasties in his first five matches. 

Adamson ranks in the top 10 for tackles made and tackles broken and sits just outside the top 10 for total carries. 

Elyjah Crosswell – Hunter

After losing a few talented backrowers to other clubs, Hunter have found another winner in Kiwi import Elyjah Crosswell. 

Still only 21, the former Manawatu forward runs hard in attack and works hard in defence and produced a match winning pilfer for Hunter against the Two Blues on the weekend. 

Christian Papas – Western Sydney

Because the Suesue brothers weren’t causing opponents enough headaches in defence, Two Blues coach Sailosi Tagicakibau recruited potentially a smaller, faster teammate in Christian Papas. 

The pint sized fullback in the black headgear is lightning quick and pops up all over the field to support his big, hard running teammates. 

Ed Timpson – Norths

Another impressive UK import, Norths No.8 Ed Timpson has scored three tries in four matches for the Shoremen so far. 

Timpson hits seriously hard in defence and has a strong offload game in attack. 

Oscar Schmidt-Uili – Southern Districts

Souths struck gold when Oscar Schmidt-Uili and his brother Ethan turned up for preseason at Forshaw. 

The brothers grew up in the local area and moved to New Zealand as kids but returned over summer and decided to pop down the road to the Rebels. 

A big winger, Oscar is behind only Ben Marr for total metres gained this season and ranks in the top  10 for total carries, line breaks and offloads. 

Ben Dalton – Eastwood

After picking up a Aussie 7s development contract, Canberra forward Ben Dalton joined Eastwood and has played every minute of the 2024 season so far. 

Dalton, who made his Aussie 7s debut in Dubai late last year, has a massive work rate and is strong at lineout time.