After missing the playoffs for the second successive season, returning Sydney Uni coach Todd Louden is confident his young side and a few older recruits can push the Students back into the finals in 2025.

A young Uni side lost seven matches by five points or less in 2024 but Louden is hoping his squad can benefit from the lessons learnt last season.

"We’re hoping we get pay in 2025 for a lot of the hard work that we did to set ourselves up last season,” Louden said.

“We developed a lot of young players last year and built a lot of depth so we’re excited to see what we can do with that group moving forward.

"We had six players play first grade last year in their first year out of school, so it was a bit of a baptism of fire, which forced them to develop pretty quickly and maybe a little too quickly from a results perspective.”

Uni played finals footy every year from 2017 to 2022, winning three first grade titles in that period, but have struggled to fill the void left by departing players in recent seasons.