Loose Pass: Steve Diamond, indiscipline and Toulon
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with intimidation, a distinct lack of goodwill season and a Quo Vadis in the south of France…
Let’s take this somewhere else…
Your correspondent was fortunate enough to be on a high level coaching course in New Zealand a handful of years ago, one graced by several of New Zealand’s most celebrated luminaries.
Nothing said was on the record, of course, but the sentiment was unanimous: Steve Diamond, who had once also been at the course facility to train, was a strange one. ‘Aggressive’ was the verdict of one of the course facilitators. ‘Angry’ was another. To a man, each of them appeared simply taken aback by Diamond’s approach to management and rugby. ‘He’s from the oldest of schools’ was a final, somewhat illuminating soundbite.
So he’s old school. So what? Is already a perfectly reasonable question at this point. Diamond has a fine track record as a coach, and you don’t hold down a coaching job for six years at one club without fostering plenty of loyalty and bonding within your ranks. Few coaches have an unblemished disciplinary record and Diamond is no exception, but he’s hardly a liability in the mould of, say, Jamie Cudmore. Sale do not play like a miserable team afraid of a bully either.
His team played with no little aggression and anger on Saturday at Gloucester, who themselves are susceptible to huge fluctuations in intensity levels. It was likely a significant part of the winning strategy for Sale, from top to bottom, on this particular day. And so it also came to pass that Diamond was apparently swearing a blue streak in the stands while urging his team on, much to the displeasure of fans around him.
Which is not ok if true. And nor is the bizarre attack on Sunday Times journalist Sam Peters, who was offered – well, demanded really – a chat ‘outside’ in response to something he had written three months previously. Diamond and Peters had not crossed paths since the article (which was deeply critical of Diamond’s methods of managing player welfare), and the personal nature of it all – you can see and hear it all here – lent much credence to the theory that Diamond had been waiting for this encounter ever since.
Who knows? And ultimately, it should be for Diamond and Peters to sort out, but please, for goodness’ sake, not on social media.
We are, however, disappointed with the RFU’s stance on this. While the continual painting of Diamond as a habitual bully and thug is a little over the top, what he did in this incident was clearly aggressive, nasty and absolutely out of kilter with what rugby is about. In disciplinary parlance, it’s absolutely ‘prejudicial to the interests of the game.’ It’s on public record, but nothing is being done about it because there is no ‘direct complaint.’
Washing hands of the responsibility for this reason is not good from the governing body. Diamond will go on coaching, he’ll continue to do a good job of it and he’s unlikely to move away from ‘old school.’ So what? But a precedent has now been set for unpunished intimidation, aggression and physical attacks on the media; a very sorry state of affairs.
‘Twas the season
And if only the Diamond incident’s ugliness was isolated. It started with the full-page picture of Owen Williams’ suspected eye-gouge of Newcastle’s Gary Graham in some papers two days before Christmas, continued with scraps, dangerous tackles, spits and referee abuse during Harlequins’ win over Wasps, hit a low point with Diamond’s blow-up and failed to recover as Leinster’s discipline crumbled against Munster.
Rugby’s fixture-makers love to stuff the calendar with as many derbies as possible, but that is starting to prove a double-edged sword in the Premiership and PRO14, which are becoming ever-more competitive.
Happy New Year to the citing commissioners though!
What happens next?
Remember Toulon? Three-time European champions? Bank-rolled to the tune of millions and stuffed with some of rugby’s finest, most experienced players? Rugby’s first ‘galactico’ team?
Yep, that’s the one that just took a 39-point nilling at the hands of Toulouse, once also feted with many of the acclamations above, and looking every bit a team soon to be so again (including the re-appearance of Guy Noves in the stadium seats).
We’ll enjoy Toulouse later in the season but Toulon looks like a club in a limbo state. They have not gained a single point on the road in this campaign – not even a bonus. The stats from the defeat were damning: they were at 70 per cent in the scrum, 90 per cent in their own rucks and completed only 60 passes.
Losses like this in France are frequently down to teams occasionally fielding inexperienced teams to conserve strength, but this was a Toulon side featuring Guilhem Guirado, Mamuka Gorgodze, Liam Messam, Rhys Webb and Mathieu Bastareaud.
It’s now three and a half years since they won their third European crown, four and a half since the last French Championship. While the squad has thinned due to financial restrictions in France, this is not a club that should be languishing in 10th place in the Top 14.
President Mourad Boudjellal, for so long the bankroll and spirit behind the club, seems to have faded from view entirely now his millions cannot be thrown around. But without something to jump into the void he – in terms of profile and character – has left. And shorn of his driving force, this also now seems to be a club bereft of identity.
A town with a rich rugby history, even before the Boudjellal revolution, it will be interesting to see what happens next.
Loose Pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan.