A FINALS berth may have eluded Berkeley this season, but the Eagles remain very much a team on the rise with Huddersfield prop Shannon Wakeman to link with his junior club next season.
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The Berkeley product was the linchpin of the Illawarra Cutters pack that claimed the ISP double crown in 2016, a year in which he also earned NSW Residents selection and was named in the ISP team of the year.
The 28-year-old, who also his six Test caps for Italy to his name, has spent the past two seasons with Huddersfield playing 27 games last year before a knee injury hampered his 2018 season.
Eagles coach Aaron McDonald said Wakeman’s signature is a big endorsement of the club’s vision for its future after a much improved 2018 campaign.
“It’s chance for him to give back to the game with his junior club, which is something he’s really excited about as we are,” McDonald said.
“A player of his ability would certainly have attracted the interest of other clubs in the Illawarra but he wanted get back involved at Berkeley and bring some of that experience to us.
“He’s definitely been watching us with interest over [in the UK] and has seen how competitive we’ve been. It’s been a bit of breakout year for us in a lot of ways and bringing Shannon on board is a really good indication of where we’re going moving forward.”
Wakeman would potentially form one of the best front-row combinations in the league with Tim Moore, who’s been a revelation in his first season with the club, also re-signing for next season as has fellow prop Mitch Stokes.
The Eagles have had the top four sides looking over their shoulder all season and McDonald is confident 2018 has unearthed the core group that can help the club make that leap to the finals next year.
“Most of the players are very keen to hang around again and are certainly excited about what we did at times this year,” McDonald said.
“You’re always looking to add that extra bit of class or depth to the club to build on the back of this year.
“It’s hard to recruit when you’re sitting at the bottom of the table so, what [this season] does, is builds a bit of confidence in the club and outside the club that we’re building something.
“We had a great start but, early on, played some teams below us on the ladder. We want to, not just be competitive every week, but win games. We’ve gotten close to every team now but they’ve come away with the two points and make sure our win column’s bigger than our loss column next year.”
A 26-20 loss to Wests that put paid to their finals hopes last week is just the latest in a string of tight losses to heavyweight clubs this season, but the Eagles will have a chance to atone for at least two of them when they play Dapto and Collegians over the final two rounds.
“We want to go out on a high over the next couple of weeks, build towards next year and hopefully gain some confidence from beating one of those big four [teams],” McDonald said.
“We’ve had discussions around what we take out of this season and, yes we’ve had good wins against the teams who sit below us on the ladder, but we’re yet to beat someone who sits above us on the ladder.
“If we can knock off one or both of these two sides we’ll be pretty happy because they were two [previous] games during the season that we probably should’ve won.
“There isn’t anyone in our team who doesn’t think we can beat Dapto or Collies. We showed that earlier this year and now it’s time to actually get the two points.”