Diamond gets real about Newcastle investment after 'embarrassing' loss

Newcastle interim director of rugby Steve Diamond said his side’s “embarrassing” mauling at the hands of Saracens shows how much investment is needed at the club.

Diamond, serving a touchline ban, watched from the press box as his Falcons were put to the sword by rampant Saracens, who scored 11 tries in a 75-28 thrashing at a sun-baked Allianz Park

Argentina flanker Juan Martin Gonzalez scored a hat-trick for star-studded Saracens, who had their three newly-selected Lions in the starting line-up, with Ben Earl adding two and Theo Dan, Ivan van Zyl, Maro Itoje, Charlie Bracken, Tom Willis and Jamie George scoring the others.

Sam Stuart scored two tries for Newcastle with Freddie Lockwood and Ben Stevenson also on the scoresheet to earn the visitors a bonus point.

Despite another heavy morale-sapping defeat for rock-bottom Newcastle, Diamond was upbeat his club still had a future, although he admits there is a lot of work to do.

Diamond said: “There’s no point in getting excited but I’m confident that investment in the club will come as several organisations are looking at it, but there is no quick fix and you will need to have at least a five-10 year plan to get some real consistency.

“The difference between the two clubs today was enormous and it showed we need investment in all structures.

“We’ve got a hard-working set of lads but we were well beaten in all areas and the final deficit is embarrassing.

“We managed to get a try bonus point which was our aim at half-time but that was the only positive.

“It’s sad when some of the boys, who’ve been here through thick and thin, decide to leave so it will be emotional against Gloucester next Friday night when Jamie (Blamire) and Callum (Chick) play their last games at Kingston Park.

“I still enjoy the job but let’s face it nobody else would want to take it on.”

It was a totally different story in the Saracens camp as they fully avenged their surprise 17-12 defeat at Kingston Park back in November to keep alive their hopes of a play-off spot and celebrate Alex Goode’s 400th appearance for the club.

It will not be an easy task to qualify as the London club face European finalists Bath and Northampton in their final two matches, which head coach Joe Shaw acknowledged.

He said: “All we can do now is control our own performances. We got what we wanted from today but we will need to reset and put in a performance away at Northampton next week.

“We’ve been in this position before but this is a much younger group who will need to learn about it.

“We played against a dogged team, who have performed with credit recently so it was very important we got our nuts and bolts right, which we did.

“It was a remarkable achievement from Alex and I don’t think it will ever be repeated as the way he has handled his career to date has been terrific.

“He has the respect of so many players from different generations and there are loads of former players who consider him to be the greatest Saracen ever.”