'Danny Cipriani, James O'Connor, they were child proteges... in the international set-up at 18, 19 and probably couldn't handle that'
Steve Diamond loves a challenge. Give him a written-off bad boy and he will alternatively see their potential for greatness. It’s how he has survived at the Sale helm for so long. Ducking and diving, wheeling and dealing, making the best of discarded goods alongside some homespun sensations such as Tom Curry.
It’s why he will allow himself a wry smile when Australia’s World Cup campaign gets going next weekend versus Fiji. No one would have given the wayward James O’Connor a cat’s chance in hell of ever reviving his unfulfilled Test career.
Yet two seasons of Diamond love and all is utterly transformed, Michael Cheika offering the once fallen star a Super Rugby deal in order to make him eligible to renew a Wallabies career where five years had elapsed between caps.
It’s a yarn that makes Diamond’s eyes sparkle, even if the success story came at the cost of Sale losing the player they had offered the lifeline to when no-one else was interested. ‘Well, obviously, the only way James could get there (to the World Cup) was by leaving us, so he has gone back here but yeah, yeah, I take a bit of pleasure out of it,” he told RugbyPass.
“He came to us with a slightly tarnished reputation but we managed to get him on the straight and narrow and now hopefully he can deliver for Australia. I take some joy out of it if I am honest,” said Diamond before going on to downplay his role in inspiring career revivals.
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“There is no real secret to it. It is just a lot of lads, once they get to 25 they mature naturally and a lot of these lads have the misdemeanours before they are 25 so there is a maturation involved. We just give them certain guidelines, what we can operate under.
“Generally if you treat them well they don’t mess up and most of these people do mess up but we never tell people about it. It’s just a case of management of them really. You have got to firm but equally, you have got to understand where they have come from and what they are about. Danny Cipriani was one, James O’Connor, they were child protégés in rugby. They were in the international set-up at 18, 19 and probably couldn’t handle that.”
Value for money is at the heart of Diamond’s desire to take a punt on damaged young souls. “It’s just working for Sale for a long time and not having a lot of money to spend, just working on that. If you can get a kid who has been a bit troubled and you can get him on the straight and narrow he becomes a very valuable player for you.
“In the day when we didn’t spend anything like the salary cap, that was always important in keeping the team up. We have changed a little bit now. We now have investors who want us to be as successful as we can be, but it still doesn’t mean we won’t look for those players and give those players an opportunity.”
Diamond’s latest penchant is for South African signings. He wouldn’t have previously been a card-carrying fan, his opinion coloured from experiences during his playing career. But he finally gets what their distinct personality has to offer, understands what they can do for an unfashionable club like Sale who aspire to grow into an outfit that isn’t just making up the numbers in the Gallagher Premiership.
“Yeah, there is (something special), which I didn’t really understand until Jono Ross joined the club and Faf de Klerk and I got to know them. I come from a generation where the first era of pros in ’95/96 came over.
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“These South African lads were deeply religious and they were unable to settle because of the difference of culture, whereas that post-Mandela, post-South Africa winning the World Cup in ’95 generation of people are a little bit more free-living.
“You take them into a city like Manchester and it’s a vibrant place. The location, to some it is grim and dark, windy and rainy, but it’s a cultural city where the lads like living. Most of the South Africans are living in the city centre, so that has worked well for me.
“They come with integrity and honesty, the South African lads. They were brought up playing rugby since they were knee-high and unlike the Not the Nine O’Clock News song ‘I have never met a nice South African’, I have never met a bad one,” he enthused, giving an insight to the internal influence these imports can wield.
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— liam heagney (@heagneyl) May 26, 2019
“They have some self-imposed embargoes in the building. There is no Afrikaans spoken in work. They get a bollocking off each other and the English lads if they hear it. You will hear Faf de Klerk shout ‘English please’ many times during the day and it is important that we do that.
“If you are bringing in able-bodied, top-class players into your environment, there is no better place to go. Some people don’t like saying it but with the crime and corruption and sometimes the dismal side of living in South Africa, even though it has its pleasant things, living in the UK is a welcome relief to them sometimes. So it is not just the rugby that appeals to them, it’s the whole culture of what they are going to get.”
That culture involved trying to make a success of rugby in an area of England consumed by football and world-renowned clubs on Sale’s doorstep. Getting regular notice in that populated a market isn’t straightforward.
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“It’s difficult,” volunteered Diamond. “But we are carrying the baton for everything (rugby) above the midlands, aren’t we? Newcastle, unfortunately, went down and with Leeds going into oblivion, we have just got to put a good side together and generate a crowd.
“The biggest marketing tool we can have is Faf de Klerk, Lood de Jager, Chris Ashton, Denny Solomona, these lads, and there is a pocket of support, a big pocket of support. Football is enormous in the north-west. You don’t have to be a geography expert to realise that.
“Within 50 miles there is five, six Premiership clubs all getting 40,000, 50,000, 60,000 people every week. We can’t challenge them really but that is why it is important the sport doesn’t take away too much of its brutalness which is what people want to see. People like the physicality of rugby. They love watching football, but there is a different sort of thing on the menu (with rugby) and I want that to continue in the north-west.”
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What has helped club rugby’s profile in England in recent years is some Premiership teams taking marquee matches to football grounds. Look at Saracens and their use of Wembley and Olympic stadiums, along with their latest deal covering an annual visit to Tottenham’s new facility.
Is that a route Sale might consider away from the small capacity, out-of-town AJ Bell stadium? “Potentially,” Diamond reckoned. “We have got a fantastic relationship with Manchester City. They have been really good with us. They have helped us out whenever they can with facilities and infrastructure, but the big job for us is filling our own stadium.
“Once we can fill that on a regular basis then the odd European game – and God willing, we qualify for Europe on a regular basis which is one of the goals we have got – you never know we could do that,” he suggested, accepting there is way more expectation about Sale in 2019/20 after the novelty of spending more money and using up their entire salary cap, something they hadn’t previously done in the Diamond era.
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“I take it [the greater expectation] as a positive. I’m going into what everybody else has always spent. I have managed to get myself seven or eight internationals with that amount of money, so the expectation is to do better than we have done. First and foremost, we have got to be a regular Heineken Cup qualifying team.
“To break into the top two in any sport is difficult. Decades it takes. Man United and Chelsea ran the Premiership for 10 years, now it looks like Man City and Liverpool are going to be running it. To knock Exeter or Saracens off their spots is difficult but there is an opportunity to challenge below them.
“What keeps me fresh? Trying to make Sale Sharks a massive team in the north-west of England and if I can do that then we will challenge. I get up every day knowing that one day I want to be talked about in the city like the football teams in there. I really think that can happen.
“We are the biggest rugby team in the north-west. We would obviously struggle to take over the super clubs, United and City, but within our own rights, our own merits in a different sport, we can quite easily get the support and the sponsorship behind us that can see us be a top-performing team.
“I have always done a fair job recruiting with the money that I had and we have done a good job with the recruiting now. There is an element of gelling that together but the next two, three years I expect us to challenge and the two investors, Simon Orange and Ged Mason, expect us to be challenging.
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“I could quite easily convince my two investors that the best way forward is to spend no money and I will keep you up and we will have a good year and we will have a poor year, but why do we want to do that?
“In the room today (at Wednesday’s Premiership launch at Twickenham) I’m probably the longest-serving, notwithstanding Rob (Baxter) who came up with Exeter and Mark (McCall) who had a different role at Saracens. I have seen people come and go. I want to be here for the next five years. I don’t want to be seeing people coming and going in my position. And to do that I have got to achieve success.”
WATCH: What happened when RugbyPass sat down with Johan Ackermann, Paul Gustard and Declan Kidney at the Gallagher Premiership launch
The English domestic season kicks off on September 20 with the Premiership Rugby Cup followed on October 18 – the weekend of the World Cup quarter-finals – with the start of the Gallagher Premiership Rugby campaign
Comments on RugbyPass
Should've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
19 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
19 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
9 Go to commentsYes Sir! Surprising, just like Fraser would also have escaped sanction if he was a few inches lower, even if it was by accident that he missed! Has there really been talk about those sanctions or is this just sensational journalism? I stopped reading, so might have missed any notations.
9 Go to commentsAI is only as good as the information put in, the nuances of the sport, what you see out the corner of the eye, how you sum up in a split second the situation, yes the AI is a tool but will not help win games, more likely contribute to a loss, Rugby Players are not robots, all AI can do if offer a solution not the solution. AI will effect many sports, help train better golfers etc.
45 Go to commentsIt couldn’t have been Ryan Crotty. He wasn’t selected in either World Cup side - they chose Money Bill instead. And Money Bill only cared about himself, and that manager he had, not the team.
28 Go to commentsYawn 🥱 nobody would give a hoot about this new trophy. End of the day we just have to beat Ireland and NZ this year then they can finally shut up 🤐
19 Go to commentsTalking bout Ryan Crotty? Heard Crotty say in a interview once that SBW doesen't care about the team . He went on to say that whenever they lost a big game, SBW would be happy as if nothing happened, according to him someone who cares would look down.. Personally I think Crotty is in the wrong, not for feeling gutted but for expecting others 2 be like him… I have been a bad loser forever as it matters so much to me but good on you SBW for being able to see the bigger picture….
28 Go to commentsThis sounds like a WWE idea so Americans can also get excited about rugby, RUGBY NEEDS A INTERNATIONAL CALENDER .. The rugby Championship and Six Nations can be held at same time, top 3 of six nations and top 3 of Rugby championship (6 nations should include Georgia AND another qualifying country while Fiji, Japan and Samoa/Tonga qualifier should make out 6 Southern teams).. Scrap June internationals and year end tours. Have a Elite top six Cup and the Bottom 6 in a secondary comp….
19 Go to commentsThe rugby championship would be even stronger with Fiji in it… I know it doesen’t fit the long term plans of NZ or Aus but you are robbing a whole nation of being able to see their best players play for Fiji…. Every second player in NZ and AUS teams has Fijian surnames… shame on you!!! World rugby won’t step in either as France and England has now also joined in…. I guess where money is involved it will always be the poor countries missing out….
90 Go to commentsNo surprise there. How hard can it be to pick a ball off the ground and chuck it to a mate? 😂
4 Go to commentsSometimes people just like a moan mate!
9 Go to comments