When you join Sydney Uni, success is an expectation.
Head coach Sean Hedger was well aware of this when he joined the club at the start of the year from Bond Uni, looking to add to the impressive trophy cabinet as they face Gordon in Saturday's Grand Final.
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Uni will be out for their 33rd title when they take the field at Leichhardt Oval, their 12th in the 21st century.
“Definitely (felt the pressure) which is good, you want to be planning for a long year rather than just making up the numbers,” Hedger, who was named co-coach of the year, reflects.
“You can feel the weight of expectations in the place. At one stage, we lost two games in a row and there’s a few questions being asked straight away.
“The last 22 seasons we’ve appeared in 17 Grand Finals so that becomes an expectation.”
This is only intensified by the growing competitiveness within Shute Shield, becoming the standard-bearer for the saying 'any team can beat anyone on any day.'
“I think in years to come, people will come back and talk about this one when everything is so even and Gordon came from seventh to make the Grand Final," Hedger believes.
"I had five years in the Brisbane comp and it was nowhere near as competitive as this.
“I think even people who have been in the Shute Shield for years have said this year has been an absolute anomaly. Two of our losses were to a team that didn’t make the final eight (Two Blues and Hunter), and I remember West Harbour were coming last and they beat Manly, who were coming first. I think in years to come people will look back at this year and talk about it.”
With this in mind, Hedger was relieved when they held on against Randwick in the Qualifying Final, earning a rare week off.
However, this seemingly had an adverse effect on the top teams, with Gordon able to ride the momentum and stun minor premiers Norths.
Hedger concedes they were far from their clinical and ruthless best as they survived a late Tane Edmed drop goal attempt to defeat Eastwood 10-9.
Despite this, he was confident they will see the benefits of the break on Saturday, boosted by the 'added 10%' the side gets out of the likes of Sam Talakai, Tom English and Henry Robertson returning at the back-end of the season.
“It’s funny because I thought it was an absolute treasure and it was fantastic. I was pumped we had the week off,” he explained. “The first thing I said was ‘I really want you to switch your brains off for Monday and Tuesday’ and we played touch because we needed it. In saying that, our performance against Eastwood…we were rusty, one week off and we were rusty, our breakdown was slow, our kick execution and accuracy was poor. “It looked like a trial game and we were lucky to scrape through. I thought it was going to be a real blessing but I think we’ll get the physical benefit of it this week.”
