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'It was sink or swim': The fearsome dressing room culture which existed at Dean Richards' Leicester
Ex-England international Sam Vesty has opened up about the very different dressing room culture that existed when he was a player at Leicester and what is now tolerated in the modern game regarding drinking, training ground bust-ups and general behaviours.
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The current Northampton Saints assistant coach made his name at Tigers during an era where the club were serial trophy winners who played hard and partied even harder. Vesty made 111 appearances for Leicester between 2002 and 2010 before finishing out his playing career at Bath.
Now 38, he has since honed a reputation as one of English rugby’s most up-and-coming coaches, earning his stripes at Worcester before wielding his influence at Chris Boyd’s Northampton. He also assisted England, travelling with them for their 2017 tour of Argentina while other staff were away with the Lions.
Looking back on his time on the field, he claimed the atmosphere at Leicester was sink or swim with players who couldn’t sufficiently adapt to the way it was run quickly cast aside during an era where Tigers were constantly challenging for Premiership and European titles.
Speaking to former Leicester teammate Jim Hamilton on The Lockdown, the RugbyPass pandemic interview series, Vesty said of his eight years at Tigers: “My fondest moments, a lot of them are off the pitch stuff where we just had a lot of fun.
“We did some great things on the field and I loved all that, but we had some great times off the field. We worked hard when we crossed the white line, that was very definite, but there was some good fun off it as well and growing up through the age groups, they were real fond times.
“You make some really good friends at that time, don’t you? I look back on this with really fond memories. Some of the drinking sessions were great fun, some of the games we had when we managed to get ourselves out of the crap and win, and some of the training sessions – you look back on some of those training sessions where it used to kick-off and you actually look back on those fondly now. They were flippin’ good times.
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“What I took from my time then is that it spit out lots of people who couldn’t take that environment. It created an environment that if you weren’t that type of person, there was nowhere to go. You either swam or you sank and if you sank you were just got rid of, you were there for three months and then suddenly gone and that happened to a lot of people in those days. Actually, a lot of the people who that happened to would have been good players.
“What I have learned from being away from there is that was one way of doing it. It was a very good way but it was very much of its time and it was very much of the place it was. Moving on, some players wouldn’t make it there but would make it somewhere else and be very, very good players, so there are different ways of doing things.
“But the fundamentals of you have to be competitive, you have to create a competitive environment where people want to beat the other people in that squad, that actually just makes everyone get better and better and better.
“Ultimately I take that competitiveness out of my time at Leicester, and then secondly the culture was peer-driven. You have been part of teams that go and write stuff on walls, they go and make lists of things and they do all these things that at that point we didn’t do.
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“But you knew as soon as someone was out of order it was put down and everyone knew where the boundaries were, they just weren’t written on walls. It wasn’t like that. Dean (Richards) set a culture, the players (he mentions Martin Johnson, Martin Corry, Richard Cockerill and Graham Rowntree by nickname), there were so many leaders there that just bossed it.”
Even the greats can make mistakes https://t.co/GUVl5NouAh
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) June 6, 2020
Comments on RugbyPass
It’s not up to Wales to support Georgian Rugby. That’s up to International Rugby and Georgia. I sympathise with Georgia’s decent attempt to create this fixture. But for Wales the proposed match up is just a potential stick to beat them with and a potential big psychological blow that young Welsh team doesn’t need. (I’m Irish BTW.)
2 Go to commentsCale certainly looks great in space, but as you say, he has struggled in contact. At 23 years old, turning 24 this year, he should be close to full physical maturity and yet there exists a considerable gap in the power and physicality required for international rugby. Weight doesn’t automatically equate to power and physicality either. Can he go from a player who’s being physically dominated in Super rugby to physically dominating in international rugby in 1 or 2 years? That’s a big ask but he may end up being a late bloomer.
28 Go to commentsIf rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.
24 Go to commentsSouth Africa rarely play Ireland and France on these tours. Mostly, England, Scotland and Wales. I wonder why
1 Go to commentsIt was a let’s-see-what-you're-made-of type of a game. The Bulls do look good when the opposition allows them to, but Munster shut them down, and they could not find a way through. Jake should be very worried about their chances in the competition.
2 Go to commentsHats off to Fabian for a very impressive journey to date. Is it as ‘uniquely unlikely’ as Rugby Pass suggests, given Anton Segner’s journey at the Blues?
1 Go to commentsSad that this was not confirmed. When administrators talk about expanding the game they evidently don’t include pathways to the top tier of rugby for teams outside of the old boys club. Rugby deserves better, and certainly Georgia does.
2 Go to commentsLions might take him on if they move on Van Rooyen but I doubt he will want to go back, might consider it a step backwards for himself. Sharks would take him on but if Plumtree goes on to win the challenge cup they will keep him on. Also sharks showing some promising signs recently. Stormers and Bulls are stable and Springboks are already filled up. Quality coach though, interesting to see where he ends up
1 Go to commentsAnd the person responsible for creating a culture of accountability is?
3 Go to commentsMore useless words from Ben Smith -Please get another team to write about. SA really dont need your input, it suck anyway.
264 Go to commentsThis disgraceful episode must result in management and coach team sackings. A new manager with worse results than previous and the coaching staff need to coached. Awful massacre led by donkeys.
1 Go to commentsInteresting article with one glaring mistake. This sentence: “And between the top four nations right now, Ireland, France, South Africa, and New Zealand…” should read: And between the top four nations right now, South Africa, Ireland, New Zealand and France…”. Get it right wistful thinkers, its not that hard.
24 Go to commentsHow did Penny get the gig anyway?
3 Go to commentsNice write up Nick and I would have agreed a week ago. However as you would know Cale & co got absolutely monstered by the Blues back row of Sotutu, Ioane and Papaliti and not all of these 3 are guaranteed a start in the Black jumper. He may need to put some kgs before stepping up, Spring tour? After the week end Joe will be a bit more restless. Will need to pick a mobile tough pack for Wales and hope England does the right thing and bashes the ABs. I like your last paragraph but I would bring Swinton, Hannigan into the 6 role and Bobby V to 8
28 Go to commentsThe Crusaders can still get in to the Play Off’s. The imminent return of outstanding captain Scott Barrett and his All Black team mate Codie Taylor will be a big boost.There are others like Tamaiti Williams too. Two home games coming up. Fellow Crusader fans get there and support these guys. I will be.
2 Go to commentsCant get more Wellington than Proctor.
2 Go to commentsWhy not let the media decide. Like how they choose the head coach. Like most of us we entrust the rugby system to choose. A rugby team includes the coaches. It's collective.
14 Go to commentsHi NIck, I have been very impressed with him and he seems a smart player who can see opportunities which Bobby V _(who must be an international 6_) doesn’t see or have the speed to take advantage of. If he continues to improve and puts on 5kgs then he could be a great 8. He is a bit taller than Keiran Reid at 1.93m and 111 kgs, so his skill set fits his body size and who knows where it will lead. I hope the spate of Achilles tendon issues have been dealt with by the S&C people. It’s been a very long time since Mark Loane and Kefu stood out at 8. The question is will we be able to hold onto him, if he does make it he will be pretty hot property. I disagree with the idea of letting them go to the Northern Hemisphere and then bring them back.
28 Go to commentsBilly Fulton 🤣🤣🤣🤣 garrrmon not even close
14 Go to commentsDoes the AI take into account refs? hahaha Seriously why not have two on field refs to avoid bias?
24 Go to comments