Steve Diamond calls on Newcastle Falcons to ‘put the cat amongst the pigeons’ after ‘systematic failure’
Steve Diamond has compared his recruitment to 'shopping in Aldi'
Newcastle Falcons director of rugby Steve Diamond believes his team will “put the cat amongst the pigeons” this season, as they seek major improvements on their disastrous 2023/24 campaign.
Newcastle ended the season rock bottom with no wins from their 18 Premiership matches, and suffered a humiliating 85-14 defeat to Bristol Bears along the way.
There were signs of improvement towards the back end of the campaign though; and now with a pre-season to make his mark on things at Kingston Park, Diamond believes his team will be better than they were last year.
“The attitude has changed”
“We’ve not changed much here. Well, the attitude has changed, but we’ve not changed much how we’re going to play,” he said.
“The attitude change was a necessary thing. The club has not won a game for practically 18 months, two years. We’ve got a very direct way we’re going to play. The players have come back in tremendous condition, so we know we’ve got them in good nick. It’s now getting little bits of knowledge and skills into them.”
The attitude change is clearly something that has been needed in the North East for the past few seasons. Since their play-off berth in 2018, the club have finished bottom of the table three times and have failed to end any higher than 10th.
Things have come to a head in the past two, though, with the Falcons finishing bottom in back-to-back seasons with a collective six wins from 38 matches.
“We’ve not done a review of last season, because Newcastle have been bottom of the league effectively for four years,” admitted Diamond.
“They’ve had a systemic failure in the place and there’s lads here who’ve gone through that period of four years and won maybe a dozen games. So the past doesn’t do any good for anybody. Last year wasn’t a blip, it was a culmination of four years.”
He also detailed how they have wiped the slate clean building into the beginning of the season.
“We’ve started again. We don’t have to start again on some of the basics, which they they were reasonably good at, even though they didn’t win a game, but we’ve just got to work on what we’ve been good at over the past year or so, and then add to that.
“To be competitive in the competition, you’ve got to have a 90% lineout or scrum, and we’ll have that to be competitive in the competition. You’ve got to give away single figure penalties. They’ve not had that for four years, but that’s a big work on for us to get.”
“Great set of lads”
Despite all that’s gone before them, Diamond remains upbeat on his team’s future, and believes they could “put a cat amongst the pigeons” this season.
“I’m confident that we’ve got a great set of lads here, led by people like Callum Chick and Adam Radwan,” said Diamond. “They’ve been here men and boys and are now complemented by people like Cameron Neild. We will put a cat amongst the pigeons in the league this year.”
Newcastle’s Premiership campaign gets underway with a tough test against Bristol Bears at Kingston Park, but if Diamond’s words are anything to go by it will be anything but another massacre in the West Country.
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