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Steve Diamond: 'I was right to jettison them'

Newcastle director of rugby Steve Diamond (Photo by Bob Bradford/CameraSport via Getty Images)

Newcastle boss Steve Diamond is preparing to end Falcons’ 17-month search for a Gallagher Premiership win by taking his players camping on the Northumberland coast while also indulging in his favourite pastime of winding up opposition teams.

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Besides entering the debate over the Rugby Football Union cashing in on the naming rights for Twickenham, which he described as “magnificent”, he dismissed the notion that any of the other nine Premiership teams have cut their playing staff like Newcastle, who will operate with just 35 professional players this season aided by 20 academy youngsters.

Ahead of next month’s 2024/25 campaign kick-off at home to Bristol, a team that defeated Newcastle 85-14 in April, Diamond said: “I don’t think other squads will be operating like us – all of them will be spending up to the salary cap. “I have been coaching for 23 years and know the kidology that goes on. All of them will be spending up to the cap plus their marquee player, so the only reason they would reduce the squad is because they were paying the players too much money.

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“We have done our numbers and no other squad has reduced its numbers like Newcastle. That’s up to them and for us, besides winning games, we have to make the business sustainable. None of the Premiership businesses are sustainable and that is part of my job up here. Selling the naming rights of Twickenham is magnificent for rugby, which has been through its worst period. But we are not out of the water yet.”

By sticking to just 35, Newcastle will put a strain on a playing squad that has to learn to win again. However, Diamond is adamant the changes implemented have given the club a stronger squad. In a typically blunt comment, he said: “Of the 17-20 players who left us, only two have got a job in Premiership and I was right to jettison them, and the six or seven new players are better than the ones that left. We have reduced the squad size to 35 and we have 20 kids through the system.

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“We will see where we are in the first six or eight games. We were beaten 85-14 by Bristol last season and we play them first this and if we get beat 80-0 or 80-5 it will be an improvement!  Our target is to be a highly competitive Premiership team and when we go away camping we will work on the strategy of how that will happen.”

Despite propping up the Premiership for far too long, Diamond is convinced that a team whose last league win came against Gloucester in March 2023 can “put a cat amongst the pigeons next season. “There has been a systemic failure in the place. There are lads who have over that four-year period one about a dozen games. Last year wasn’t a blip – it was a culmination of poor recruiting.

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“We haven’t changed much here except the attitude which was necessary as the club hasn’t won a Premiership game for 17 months, so we have a very direct way we are going to play and the players have come back in fantastic condition. The irony is that the six players who have joined us from other Premiership clubs are not as fit as the guys who are here. It is now about a little bit of knowledge and skill and see where we go because we are in it to win everything.

“The experience they had up here with Dean Richards (former director of rugby) has been sadly missed and I bring something similar to that. We will make Kingston Park a formidable place for other teams to come to despite the fact they spend twice as much money as us.

 “No one has done more than me in the Premiership and rugby in the north is really important to me. We have to prove the doubters wrong who think we won’t win a Premiership game and no doubt the other teams will be thinking the same. We have no pressure and by training here we need to understand the weather better than anyone else and we will have some advantages. I want to be pushing for Europe next season.”

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f
fl 46 minutes ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

“He won a ECL and a domestic treble at the beginning of his career.”

He won 2 ECLs at the beginning of his career (2009, 2011). Since then he’s won 1 in 15 years.


“He then won 3 leagues on the bounce later in his career”

He won 3 leagues on the bounce at the start of his career too - (2009, 2010, 2011).


If we’re judging him by champions league wins, he peaked in his late 30s, early 40s. If we’re judging him by domestic titles he’s stayed pretty consistent over his career. If we’re judging him by overall win rate he peaked at Bayern, and was better at Barcelona than at City. So no, he hasn’t gotten better by every measure.


“You mentioned coaches were older around the mid-2010’s compared to the mid-2000’s. Robson was well above the average age you’ve given for those periods even in the 90’s when in his pomp.”

Robson was 63-64 when he was at Barcelona, so he wasn’t very old. But yeah, he was slightly above the average age of 60 I gave for the top 4 premier league coaches in 2015, and quite a bit above the averages for 2005 and 2025.


“Also, comparing coaches - and their experiences, achievements - at different ages is unstable. It’s not a valid way to compare and tends to torpedo your own logic when you do compare them on equal terms. I can see why you don’t like doing it.”

Well my logic certainly hasn’t been torpedoed. Currently the most successful premier league coaches right now are younger than they were ten years ago. You can throw all the nuance at it that you want, but that fact won’t change. It’s not even clear what comparing managers “on equal terms” would even mean, or why it would be relevant to anything I’ve said.


“You still haven’t answered why Kiss could be a risker appointment?”

Because I’ve been talking to you about football managers. If you want to change the subject then great - I care a lot more about rugby than I do football.

But wrt Kiss, I don’t agree that 25 years experience is actually that useful, given what a different sport rugby was 25 years ago. Obviously in theory more experience can never be a bad thing, but I think 10 years of coaching experience is actually more than enough these days. Erasmus had been a coach for 13 years when he got the SA top job. Andy Farrell had been a coach for 9 when he got the Ireland job. I don’t think anyone would say that either of them were lacking in experience.


Now - what about coaches who do have 25+ years experience? The clearest example of that would be Eddie Jones, who started coaching 31 years ago. He did pretty well everywhere he worked until around 2021 (when he was 61), when results with England hit a sharp decline. He similarly oversaw a terrible run with Australia, and currently isn’t doing a great job with Japan.

Another example is Warren Gatland, who also started coaching full-time 31 years ago, after 5 years as a player-coach. Gatland did pretty well everywhere he went until 2020 (when he was 56), when he did a relatively poor job with the Chiefs, before doing a pretty poor job with the Lions, and then overseeing a genuine disaster with Wales. There are very few other examples, as most coaches retire or step back into lesser roles when they enter their 60s. Mick Byrne actually has 34 years experience in coaching (but only 23 years coaching in rugby) and at 66 he’s the oldest coach of a top 10 side, and he’s actually doing really well. He goes to show that you can continue to be a good coach well into your 60s, but he seems like an outlier.


So the point is - right now, Les Kiss looks like a pretty reliable option, but 5 years ago so did Eddie Jones and Warren Gatland before they went on to prove that coaches often decline as they get older. If Australia want Kiss as a short term appointment to take over after Schmidt leaves in the summer, I don’t think that would be a terrible idea - but NB wanted Kiss as a long term appointment starting in 2027! That’s a massive risk, given the chance that his aptitude will begin to decline.


Its kind of analagous to how players decline. We know (for example) that a fly-half can still be world class at 38, but we also know that most fly-halves peak in their mid-to-late 20s, so it is generally considered a risk to build your game plan around someone much older than that.

168 Go to comments
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NB 3 hours ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

https://www.london.edu/think/how-claudio-ranieri-transformed-leicester-city


He jts knew how to use that deep well of knowledge accumulate over many years of management. A true Moneyball story!

168 Go to comments
f
fl 3 hours ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

“Two comparable achievements 15 years apart (at different clubs in different leagues) represent failure and not continued success for an elite level coach/manager? Not even a hint of consistency? Just gradual, inevitable decline? And all because he is in his sixth decade?”

Why don’t you try reading what I wrote before you start inventing a load of other random things that I didn’t say. I said “Pep hasn’t gotten better with age”. He hasn’t. I don’t think he’s got much worse, and yeah, he’s been fairly consistent over his career and has had more success than almost any other coach. But he hasn’t gotten better.


“You’ve missed that Mourinho’s early start in football was as a translator for Bobby Robson (ironically a much older manager at the time!).”

I was actually aware of that. I didn’t mention it because it wasn’t relevant to the fact that Mourinho - aged 52 - had more experience than Arteta does at 43. It also isn’t ironic that Bobby Robson was a much older manager at the time - it actually confirms by point that a lot of the top football managers used to be older than they are today.


“You suggested that Les Kiss would not be suited to an international coaching role because of his age profile…that seemed to relate to rugby”

That did relate to rugby. Let me walk you through the thread…


NB suggested that Les Kiss should become Australia head coach in 2027.

I said: “Given the drop off so many top coaches seem to experience as they get older (e.g. Jones, Gatland) Kiss could be a riskier appointment than you’d think!”

NB said: “Drawing a parallel with the NFL and NBA, plenty of coaches stay well into their 70’s”

I said: “Not all sports are going the same way though” then gave the example of football.


The example of football was introduced in order to make the point that the age profile of managers is not the same in every sport. If you had read the thread you were replying to you would know this!

168 Go to comments
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