Diamond: Covid is Worcester's best hope of beating Sale
Steve Diamond has admitted his struggling Worcester team need a Covid outbreak at former club Sale Sharks to allow them to register a vital Premiership victory this weekend.
Diamond was denied a top four Premiership regular season finish two years ago at Sale when a game with Worcester was called off due to Covid-19 positive tests in the Sharks squad and having taken over at Warriors, he has seen the side beaten by Northampton and Leicester.
Diamond officially becomes the club’s new director of rugby at the end of the season but is already in charge with Jonathan Thomas having left as head coach. Sale are billing his first return since ending a 10 year tenure as director of rugby in December 2020 as “ Old flame, new rivalry” and he said: “The best thing that could happen for us this weekend is that they (Sale) get Covid and I don’t think that is going to happen! The form they are in, they have a chance of getting to the top of the league.
“We have a side at Worcester which has been comprehensively beaten in the last two weeks and going up to Manchester as an old flame is different to what I am used to. I am looking forward to it and in reality it is a bit like a divorce. In the last 30 years I was there for 26 and some divorces end nicely and some don’t. Fortunately, mine ended in an amicable way and when that happens you are invited back into the house now and then.
“They have a younger model looking after them and Worcester have picked up an old lag and we will see over the next two or three years who gets the best deal. Alex has taken the team to perhaps another level which is great credit to him. They are going places with a different driver of the bus and it looks like everyone has jumped off my bus and jumped onto his which is what you want. The transition is good for Sale. I have never been in the visitor’s dressing room but I have knocked the door down a couple of times! I will be quiet with a gag in my mouth.
“The squad at Sale and behind the scenes took a long time to build and there are a lot of people who were involved in that and then you move on to pastures new and I am excited about what we are trying to do at Worcester over the next few years.
“Both clubs have generated players through their academies and at Worcester we want the academy products to compliment the experienced gnarly people I am looking to bring in over the summer. We want to be respected in the Premiership and Europe and those footsteps are taken slowly and over the next month everyone who is not staying at Worcester will be informed and then we will start the recruitment drive.
“I am not going to be ruthless and it will be fair as we streamline the squad a little bit. Four or five of those decision about who is leaving have been done already and they have been informed and the players have promised me they will be very diligent and work as hard as possible until the end of the season until we pass them over to their next journey in life. This can be done amicably and there as some great players at Worcester and some others who haven’t fulfilled their potential.
“I made Alex (Sanderson) captain in 2001 and he moved to Saracens with me in 2004 and I left in 2006 and he stayed on and we have always maintained a good friendship. It’s been a friendly rivalry although to be fair it’s probably 20-0 to him at Saracens! With the fantastic Sale have that will probably be the same this weekend. We went to Leicester and it took six players to pull down Jasper Wiese and Sale have got five players like him and goodness knows what will happen if we turn up with the same mindset.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Job done guys. Great win in a game where things can quickly go wrong.
1 Go to commentsAlex Sanderson fantastic coach and person .So pleased he has signed another contract great days ahead for Sale under his leadership.
1 Go to commentsAndy Goode cant kick to 12
162 Go to commentsDoxed himself. Great work Johnny. You are well suited to the Saders
1 Go to comments_Best game players _
1 Go to commentsWho's Jarrad Hohepa?
1 Go to commentsSo let me get this straight. Say you have the dominant scrum. You are 99% sure you can go for a scrum pushover try on the line to win the game. The opposition knows it too. They give away a silly tap kick instead. You are now not allowed to scrum. This is ridiculous! *%@ing the game up as usual! The fact that the attacking teams are not allowed to scrum from a held up over the line is just as ridiculous. Really world rugby? Careful people might start a rebel league called True Rugby or Real Rugby.
76 Go to comments12 subs during a game? How has that been allowed to happen NB? I hate when the game goes in this monopolistic direction closing up shop, it just becomes non sport. Btw have you seen anything of how Liam Coltman was tracking for Lyon? He has just signed to return to Otago though we have a couple of young hookers developing here. He was a popular gentle natured character down here and I’m glad to see him back but maybe he will be a mentor primarily?
10 Go to commentsGreat breakdown and the global politics always confuses me a little. The southern hemisphere seems to be left out a bit but I wouldn’t even know where to start with fixing it. Club challenge could be a step in the right direction
10 Go to commentsSince he coached Free state, from that time onwards, I maintained he was the coach for the Boks. A nice, no nonsense guy with an excellent brain, who gets results.
11 Go to commentswell - they only played against 14 men and had the TMO team on their side - and still should have lost… so actually that makes sense.
33 Go to commentsSouthern hemisphere Rugby is exactly that, boring. Northern Hemisphere Rugby is soooo much more entertaining and better with better players.
2 Go to commentsIf he was to be cited for a dangerous behavior, then it’s natural that he should be. Then NTamack too, yes? And I’ll add a good whataboutism - Yeandle eye-gouging on Richie Arnold: not cited. Eye-gouging. Not high tackle. Eye-gouging. It was on French TV, with French TV directors.
5 Go to commentsReally poorly written rambling piece ..
10 Go to commentsIt was so boring
2 Go to commentspersonally I’d go with : 1. France 2. NZ 3. England 4. Ireland 5. Scotland
33 Go to commentsAndy everything becomes easier with experience therefor counting etc straight after a match becomes easier when you have 100+ caps vs 17 which is the experience you speak from.
162 Go to commentsGetting rid of the Dupont Law is a good thing and ought to have been done months ago! Officially getting rid of the croc roll is a good thing. The law about no scrums from a short arm is well intended in terms of speeding the game up but it’s an overreaction to a clever yet calculated gamble that could have blow up in South Africa’s face if they conceded a penalty from the scrum that was set after Willemse took claimed the mark in the World Cup QF.
76 Go to commentsRassie The GOAT
11 Go to commentsOf their 5 big matches in RWC Scotland and NZ were the easiest. They took a 12-3 lead against NZ and after the red decided it was best to hold the lead and take chances that came. None came and it was tight but they dug a lot deeper in the other two knock out matches. They had trounced NZ in Twickenham in a fixture that NZ must now regret. Psychology was clearly with SA in the final as a result.
33 Go to comments