Loughborough Lightning: The confident underdog, no 'super stars' club

Nathan Smith has always been up-front – an interviewee who swings for sixes, rather than straight-batting – which makes the encyclopaedic Northerner a reporter’s dream, and the perfect person to speak to at the PWR’s halfway stage, as his Lightning side look to strike at Queensholm this weekend.

At present, we’ve a lead pack of two – three-peaters in cherry and white, and wolves, all in black – behind which Harlequins, Chiefs, Trailfinders and Loughborough are thrashing it out for the two remaining golden tickets.

Can he see that status quo changing?

Smith thinks for a moment, and the mental rolodex of fixtures and permutations audibly churns…

“Honestly? No. The’ve got too much of a lead in what’s not a big league – and deep enough squads to cover injuries. Plus, they’ve got experience in finishing off campaigns, so they’re incredibly hard to chase. They’d have to drop off a cliff.

“That does leave them with a completely different challenge to the chasing pack, though,” he continues. “There’s a psychological element they’ve got to manage, plus – with that profile of player – international distractions.”

Once the Six Nations begins, and glittering hordes head into camp, both the champions’ and North Londoners’ rosters will rattle around their respective corridors that little bit louder than their rivals’ – and that psychological piece is fascinating.

“Might Saracens become complacent,” he muses, “because they feel a home semi-final’s already secured? And, as for Gloucester-Hartpury – I’ve never gone for a fourth title, so I’d not know – but where’s that hunger coming from?”

One can only imagine how the above would raise Alex Austerberry’s hackles, or draw a quiet smile across Dan Murphy’s face, but they’re absorbing observations – swiftly followed by Smith stressing that his side have both scalps in them: those might be the competition’s Goliaths, but he’d not put it past his side to pull a David.

After all – they stunned Sarries 13 months ago at Franklin’s Gardens – a 22-17 victory which sent shockwaves around the league, and proved a seminal performance for his young charges.

“There was a belief issue up until that point,” he admits. “Then we actually got over the line.”

The result had been a long time coming, and even harder-earned. Lightning reached back-to-back playoffs in 2019 and 2021 – with names like Katy Daley-McLean, Emily Scarratt, Lark Atkin-Davies, Sarah Hunter, and Cath O’Donnell leaping from the team sheet – before Chiefs’ arrival, and the meteoric trajectories of Bears and the Circus saw them skittled from domestic rugby’s top table.

Something needed to change, and – at a club built on the success of their BUCS Super Rugby pathway, and their consistent ability to unearth hyper-ambitious talent – the answer felt as obvious as it appears counter-intuitive: fewer big names.

They’d grown “heavily reliant on internationals – but [their] periphery athletes weren’t at a level to compete.” Lose one of those titans, and they were “completely out of it,” so focus turned to “creating the depth required to challenge.

“If you take Sadia (Kabeya) and Alev (Kelter) out of there, I don’t think we’ve got any super stars – but what we do have is 15 players who are prepared to go and win these big games. We’re not carrying anyone – this is a strong, young team – who are really pushing. They play so hard for each other: they dog it out each week.”

There’s a case to be made that Helen Nelson and Fancy Bermudez are categorisable as ‘stars’, but – nevertheless – one glance at a Lightning formation underlines that this lot are tyros, and they can really ball.

Isla Curphey, Keia Mae Sagapolu, Lilli Ives Campion, Daisy Hibbert-Jones, Haineala Lutui, Alicia Maude, Bo Westcombe-Evans, Carmela Morrall, and Lucia Scott all started against Trailfinders last time out: all Noughties babies, and all ferocious hard workers. Hibbert-Jones’ long-term contract extension this week epitomises their model and ambitions as a programme: they’re after “high potential and high character” individuals.

Their season so far? A trio of wins, defeats at the Stoop and StoneX, and – implausibly – two draws. Smith’s assessment is, unsurprisingly, just as multi-faceted.

“We’re historically really bad starters, so this – the best we’ve had in six years – is properly exciting. We’re in the fight, rather than chasing our way into contention. Now it’s up to us to finish the job.”

The squandered opportunities do sting. “Two or three missed tackles” decided a humming opener away to Quins, whilst a ten-point lead was relinquished against Trailfinders. “We should be firmly in the top four – but for those growth errors.”

And yet, they snatched three points from the jaws of defeat against Barney Maddison’s outfit, and somehow scrapped their way back into contention again and again when Exeter visited – requiring “brilliant mental strength. Those points could prove decisive, come the end of it all.”

January was, to no-one in African Violet’s delight, a mini preseason – borne out of necessity. “If we continue what we’re doing, we won’t finish top four: we need to come back better than when we left. Everyone else will!”

Players were beasted; staff pored over their processes, data, and schedules in search of marginal gains; and core values were scrutinised. Play hard and fast, battle for one another, and defend so aggressively that you’re simultaneously plotting the chaos you’re going to wreak on transition.

Last year they “lit up outside of structured moments”, whereas – this term – they’re more powerful than ever before, ball-in-hand, and – in no small part thanks to Scarratt – lethal off strike moves. The holy grail? Able to improvise as well as premeditate: “we can’t be one-trick ponies.”

The side show to all of this hustle was a spectacularly competitive spike ball tournament, and its finale a pizza night at which Olivia – Smith’s daughter with Sarah Hunter – was the star of the show.

The crunch ties are rounds 11, 14, and 16 – return fixtures against those other playoff contenders (although March’s trip to Salford is pretty tasty) – but, before all that, there’s an 18-game streak to be snapped in Gloucester, and he’s given his prodigious crusaders permission to swing the bat – hard. Scaz-ball, if you will.

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“This is the least daunting match we’ll play all year: no one expects us to get any points – let alone win. We can go and try stuff, impose our game, and have a really good dig at a result. The pressure is firmly on them to keep winning, which they’re not going to do forever – so it’s a case of us being the team who trips them up.”

Perhaps the most mouthwatering prospect is seeing how newcomer Haineala Lutui fares against the Circus’ troupe of enforcers. The 19-year-old hurricane made 22 carries on debut – the most in round one – and has kept her foot flat to the accelerator since. She’s remained top of that leaderboard, has wrestled the thorny post-contact metres crown off Sarah Bern, and goes about her business with the mesmeric, swerving ballast of a figure-skating Godzilla – generously sprinkling the whole enchilada with offloads as she goes.

“She’s class: very easy to coach, understands professionalism, a credit to her upbringing, and an exceptional ball carrier who’s met every challenge so far – entirely unfazed. The world’s her oyster – and there’s no greater measure of where you are than running down the throat of Zoe Stratford and Alex Matthews.”

The challenge he’s laid at Lutui’s prodigious, defender-mashing feet is simple: “go prove me right. I know you can compete with those sorts of players.”

It’s a gauntlet, you feel, he could offer his whole squad: young, fearless, and with history in their crosshairs. They’ll swing hard on Sunday – daring to dream of a performance which soars – within an innings bursting with promise.