A Saturday evening showdown between the 10th and 11th best teams in Super Rugby Pacific this season is hardly the hottest ticket in town.
However, the more intriguing subplot to the upcoming Waratahs and Western Force clash will be the fierce battle between two coaches with strong Shute Shield connections and a big following in Sydney club rugby circles.
NSW coach Darren Coleman and Force counterpart Simon Cron will go head to head for the first time at Super Rugby level, six years after they squared off in the 2017 Shute Shield final.
Between them, they have hundreds of mates in Sydney who will head to the game to support two club rugby coaches that came good.
Coleman’s Warringah side prevailed over Cron’s Northern Suburbs in the 2017 Shute Shield grand final on an emotional afternoon at North Sydney Oval.
The win came weeks after Warringah captain Sam Ward’s brother Lachlan passed away while playing a lower grade match for the club.
Sam Ward is surrounded by team mates after Warringah win the Shute Shield final in 2017. Credit: James Brickwood
“That was a great day but that wasn’t me against Cronny,” Coleman said. “That was still to this day the most emotional day I’ve had in footy. It was epic.
“We’ve got a good friendly rivalry. I have a lot of respect for Cronny. Right back to 2016, we worked at Easts before he went back to Norths and I went back to the Rats not long after that. He has a lot of passion and is an educator. We duked it out in Shute Shield and NRC and it’ll be good to rekindle that tomorrow.”
A year earlier, Cron helped Norths end 41 years of Shute Shield heartbreak with a magnificent 28-15 victory over Sydney University.
Cron went on to coach the Sydney Rays in the National Rugby Championship before landing an assistant coaching role with the Waratahs.
Western Force and Waratahs coaches Simon Cron and Darren Coleman.Credit: Brook Mitchell
In Cron’s first year, with Daryl Gibson at the helm as head coach, NSW made a Super Rugby semi-final.
From there, Cron went to Japan to work under former All Blacks coach Steve Hansen and looked after two of the game’s great back-rowers in Michael Hooper and Kieran Read.
Cron was interested in applying for the Waratahs job, but decided not to. Months later, Coleman got the nod from the NSW Rugby board.
Now at the Force, things haven’t quite gone to plan for Cron. His side has managed two wins from six starts, one more than the Waratahs.
“DC and I have had opportunities to coach against each other in Shute Shield,” Cron said. “We’re going to go at it. [The Shute Shield] was really important and I’m a massive one for those pathways.”
The Waratahs are coming off four straight losses, which is uncharted territory for Coleman, whose record in recent years – across the Shute Shield and Major League Rugby – has been excellent.
Coleman, who won a competition with Gordon in 2020, is upbeat but understands the importance of hauling the Waratahs up from second last on the ladder.
“I think it’s must-win for our confidence,” Coleman said. “If we don’t win tomorrow, it compiles the problems.
“I was probably darker after the first two losses than I was after [number three and four]. If your team is trending the right way, there is more optimism and hope. One thing I have noticed is I’m getting a lot more phone calls from people offering advice, which is always the way when you’re losing.
“I’m a positive person by nature. I felt we made some great strides in our last game [against the Brumbies]. We’re fresh and we have a good team. We have no excuses not to perform.”
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