Approaching his 25th year in coaching, Newcastle Falcons director of rugby Steve Diamond may celebrate his silver anniversary with a special gift to himself.
Newcastle are looking for new backing with Semore Kurdi, the chairman and majority owner, exploring investment options after more than a decade at the club. Diamond insists the situation is “promising” and that “definite interest” has arisen, including from himself.
“Would I be a shareholder? I would, yeah,” Diamond tells Telegraph Sport. “But it needs capital investment into the infrastructure and into the team, which is obvious. It’s a long-term plan, not a short-term hit.
“Rugby will grow. Some owners have been involved for 20 years. They’re successful businessmen; why would they stay in it if they didn’t believe it would turn the corner, people like Bruce Craig, Simon Orange and Nigel Wray?
“They’ve all invested heavily into it and they’re better businessmen than me, so the answer to whether I’d invest is ‘yeah’.”
Diamond’s side ended a 25-game Premiership losing streak with impressively dogged victories over Exeter Chiefs and Saracens at Kingston Park which caused a stir and lifted Newcastle off the bottom of the table. But, in due course, Diamond would welcome a more overarching remit.
‘Newcastle could prove to be a sleeping giant’
The 55-year-old has juggled different roles before. At Sale Sharks, for instance, he was a shareholder as well as director of rugby and even had a spell as chief executive. His elevator pitch to anyone eyeing up Newcastle is typically forthright.
“The pitch is that they would be getting hold of a franchise in a Premiership that, I think, is at its optimum with 10 teams,” he adds. “With the right investment, Newcastle could prove to be a sleeping giant.
“The region – Durham, Tyne and Wear, Cumbria, Northumberland – is a massive rugby region. For an investor, it’s not just about buying a club in the North East, it’s about being part of the competition.
“We’ll get eight to nine thousand people coming to the Bath game on Saturday, and that’s for a side bumbling around at the bottom of the league.”
‘The more investors the better for the league’
The F-word – “franchise” – tends to trigger ire in those who condemn the Premiership as a closed shop of self-interest. Diamond has been a vocal supporter of promotion and relegation, though, and welcomed the recent news that Coventry have applied to be in an end-of-season play-off if they finish top of the Championship.
“Coventry are a well-run club,” he says. “The more investors at that level that want to have a go at it, the better for the league. If you remember a few years ago, those play-off games with Worcester and Bristol were probably getting as big a television audience as the top of the league.”
Over the past year, since arriving as a replacement for Alex Codling, Diamond has obviously developed an affinity for Falcons. He speaks fondly about Jamie Blamire, Callum Chick and Adam Radwan, a trio of senior statesmen, as well as less heralded figures.
The Hancock twins, Callum and Connor, who have propped for England Students, were signed over the summer. Callum started in the Challenge Cup loss to Dragons on Sunday after Richard Palframan withdrew with an injury. The 24-year-old dug deep in the scrum battle.
Diamond has streamlined the coaching team, too. Alan Dickens oversees both attack, with Lee Dickson as an assistant, and defence, where Diamond helps out. Local favourite Micky Ward is the forwards guru and Scott MacLeod was reappointed as line-out coach. Also name-checked as part of the “home-spun” staff are assistant coach Mark Laycock, head of rugby operations John Stokoe and financial director Nick Doggett.
Proud of his shrewd recruitment record, Diamond admits the “brutal” truth that Challenge Cup defeats by Pau and Dragons have shown that some players are “probably not good enough”. He will be busy with negotiations from early January, having put out “one or two” early offers to those that Newcastle are keen to keep. At the moment, Pedro Rubiolo and Blamire are the only individuals leaving of their own volition.
“There are 26 or 27 out of around 33 out of contract that I want to stay,” Diamond explains. “For someone coming in as an investor, if they didn’t have me at the helm, they could see this as a disaster. I’m not getting rid of another 20 or so, like I did last year. We know Pedro and Jamie Blamire are leaving. The rest will be told in January to give them time to get another contract somewhere.
“After that, even under the auspices of Semore, we will be recruiting under this year’s budget. If and when we get another investor, that decision on spending will be with them and, if I’m there, me. Let’s say we’re spending £4 million – and you can spend £8 million and be under the salary cap with everything else – would we want to spend £8 million in year one? I’m not sure. The rebuild has to be done strategically over two or three years.”
Diamond counts Fran Cotton and Steve Smith, decorated England internationals and co-founders of Cotton Traders, as mentors in business with whom he maintains regular dialogue.
“Sports businesses can be peculiar things,” he says. “You can have businessmen who make hundreds of millions of pounds in other areas and then, when it comes to football or rugby, they go squishy. To a certain extent, it can become more of a toy and you can’t always apply the business reasoning to a plaything.
“I’ve always tried to look after the money of investors as though it has been my own,” Diamond adds. “I’ve reduced squad sizes, had lean management teams. We don’t need to be going to Spain on pre-season trips. We can go to the Lake District.
“I’ve looked after the pennies. Equally, you can’t run these businesses by cost-cutting all the time. You’ve got to bring revenue in. That’s the big thing for Newcastle, probably [getting] more staff on the sales side, more on the marketing and then you can grow. You’ve got to speculate to accumulate. If we want to increase crowds and sponsorship, then we have to be winning games and getting to the latter stages of competitions.”
‘We need more characters in the game that people can relate to’
In the current climate, with memories of financial ruin still raw, investing in English rugby union may not seem the brightest idea. Diamond does not see it that way.
“Rugby does itself no favours by kicking itself in the teeth,” he argues. “If you look at football, I don’t think too many of the clubs away from those in the Premier League and the top half of the Championship make any money. I think that’s the model – it’s difficult unless you have a transfer market and rugby is never going to be like that.
“I think the way rugby can be sustainable is by going the way it’s going; by talking about big hits within the laws of the game, by talking about physicality, promoting the derbies and the rivalry. That’s definitely the way forward. And we need more superstars. We need more Danny Ciprianis; characters in the game that people can relate to.
“Not everyone can relate to Jonny Wilkinson, who was a fantastic player and the perfect role model. A lot more people can relate to Cips, who hasn’t always had it easy. And I’m one of those.
“People outside the game or who don’t know me think I’m some sort of hot-head on the sidelines. I don’t mind people believing that. Once people sit down and get to know me… put it this way, I’ve never struggled to get a job. There’s not many around who have been coaching for 24 years.”
Turning back to this weekend’s meeting with Bath, which precedes Premiership fixtures against Northampton Saints and Harlequins, Diamond reveals that he wants Newcastle to win two of the next three. It almost sounds like a challenge to himself, not least because the absence of centre Sammy Arnold is a serious blow for Falcons.
“Bath are a good side, they’re well coached,” Diamond acknowledges. “It’s David and Goliath. There’s no way we should be beating them. We’ve got to do what we’ve been doing well, stick to the plan and we’ll have a chance. A bonus-point loss and we’re doing alright. If we win, it’ll cost me another arm and a leg taking the players out.”
Just as he started this conversation, Diamond finishes by backing Newcastle with a willingness to put his money where his mouth is.