Warringah Rats turn to fourth-grader for Shute Shield grand final

Unheralded Warringah Rats hooker Tom Gee typically finishes playing fourth grade rugby on a Saturday before settling back for the afternoon with a few cold beers to watch the club’s Shute Shield team run around.

But this Saturday Gee will start in the top grade as the Rats aim for back-to-back titles when they play Eastern Suburbs at Leichhardt Oval in the grand final.

Gee gets his chance after an injury crisis at hooker. In early August, the Rats lost Wes Thomas to a serious neck injury while playing Sydney University. That day, Warringah lost two other hookers in the lower grades to injury.

The club also unsuccessfully tried to field a recruit from the Brisbane club premiership in the finals, but he is ineligible having not played the minimum required four matches.

It left Gee as the next man up, after playing 12 fourth grade games this season.

“Normally by the time first grade’s gone on, he’s had about 10 beers,” Rats coach Josh Holmes said.

“The funny thing is, when we were playing Uni, he knew the two hookers went down, and he messaged me and said, ‘Do you need me on the bench?’ And I wrote back and said, ‘How many beers you had?’

“And he said four, and I was like, ‘OK, you’ve had eight.’

“I was like, I’m not going to go down that path. But straight away he was thinking about how can I help out? He’s a good man, and he’s excited about this week.”

Holmes said he was disappointed not to get the clearance from the Sydney Rugby Union for former Fiji under-20s representative Joshua Uluibau to play in the finals.

“We didn’t just lose Wes [Thomas], we lost our two second-grade hookers as well on the same day against [Sydney] Uni,” Holmes said. “Our second-grade hooker Finn [Hurd] tore his meniscus, and then Elijah Taylor came on, and he did his rotator cuff, so we literally lost three hookers that day, we were hurting a bit, and then when Wes went down, and I was like, gosh, this is a disaster.

“But we went through the process to get a dispensation, and in the end, everyone was, I feel like, against us wanting to get it approved [to have a replacement], so it’s hard when you’re one team against everyone else.”

Sydney Rugby Union statement

All clubs have till 3pm on Monday to submit dispensation requests for the finals. Requests are assessed by an independent panel and the hearing was heard by three independent lawyers.

Warringah made both written and oral submissions on Monday 17 August.

They were advised of the decision to deny dispensation for Joshua Uluibau on Tuesday 18 August before the semi-finals. Warringah appealed the decision under the SRU constitution, and all affected parties were advised on Thursday 20 August. SRU expedited the process and an appeal was heard by a senior counsel on Thursday 27 August. Warringah and all affected parties were advised the appeal was dismissed on Friday 28 August.

SRU won’t make any further comments and wish both teams well for Saturday’s grand final.

In a statement, the SRU said it would not comment any further following the appeal.

Holmes said Thomas is gradually recovering and was able to watch the Rats defeat Gordon 46-19 in the preliminary final.

“He’s still got a long way to go, but he’s definitely on the right track, and he’s looking a lot better,” Holmes said.

“He’s walking around. Now it’s more around him getting his strength back in his arms and stuff like that, so that he can live a normal life.

“But on the weekend he turned up, and we didn’t tell the boys he was coming, and I think it was the biggest round of applause and cheer that I’ve heard in ages.

“You could instantly see the impact that he had on the weekend when he turned up. It was awesome, and the boys definitely lifted from seeing him.”

The rugby community has raised more than $200,000 to help Thomas’ recovery. Warringah captain Ben Marr said Thomas will continue to motivate the team, especially fellow hooker Gee, who takes on a vaunted Easts line-up that includes Waratahs Sid Harvey, Teddy Wilson and former Scotland centre Nick Grigg.

“Even if people don’t know Wesley directly, all you’ve got to do is ask someone who does, and they just speak wonders of him,” Marr said.

“So I’m sure he’ll be there with us this weekend in some form, and it’s definitely motivation now … he’s such a big part of us and what the Rats are.”

Easts have lost two games this season and will go into the final as favourites, despite the Rats fielding a couple of representative players in Waratahs recruit Luke Reimer and Fijian international Ilaisa Droasese.

“So everyone again wants to paint the narrative that we’re the big favourites and all that, but they’ve got a few good players as well,” Easts coach Ben Batger said.

Neither Batger nor captain Josh Bokser have watched last year’s final, but the coach believes there are learnings to take from the defeat.

“I know the boys were certainly hungry; a grand final loss really hurts,” Batger said.

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Jonathan Drennan is a sports reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.AdvertisementAdvertisement