Diamond eyeing 'oven-ready' South African as he promises more signings

Newcastle Falcons boss Steve Diamond is looking for “oven-ready” players as he continues a squad clear-out at the Gallagher Premiership’s bottom club.

Newcastle head to Bristol Bears on Sunday desperately seeking a first league win of the season and have been boosted by the likely return from injury of Bath-bound flanker Guy Pepper – one of the talented young players who have opted out of staying at the North East club.

While Pepper has made his own decision about his playing future, Diamond, who undertook similar changes of personnel when in charge of Sale Sharks and the now defunct Worcester Warriors, is working his way through the current squad identifying who warrants a new deal with the club.

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Diamond told RugbyPass there are still players who are playing for a new contract and said: “We are looking at another big lock and ideally it would be young English players you are looking to bring in but sometimes you have to go for an oven-ready player and generally they are from South Africa.

“There are two or three players currently here who I am holding back on making a decision (about keeping them) because I want to see them play again. If you go about it in a professional way, they accept it because it is done honestly.

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“We have signed Luan de Bruin (from Edinburgh) and he comes with the right make-up – big mobile, strong scrummager and a good lad.

“With so many leaving and so few coming in they have to have credibility of playing a lot of rugby in the last two or three years and being durable. There are three or four more signings coming.

“We were in a different position at Sale (when I was there) with new investors coming in and we got to the top four quickly and we are not in that position. We are signing players with 120 games under their belts and the market is different this time because I am fishing in a different pond.

“There is 100 per cent more value on the market and there are people who thought they had contracts at other clubs and it has fallen through. There are three less clubs in the Premiership so there are 200 less rugby jobs player-wise. I am convincing people to sometimes come here for one year to rekindle their career and use us as a stepping stone and there is no embarrassment in that as we make Newcastle highly competitive and not bumbling around.

“All of them I have some connection with me and they know what they are coming into and I know what I am getting and they are definitely fit.

“Going to Bristol is not easy and what I haven’t had to do is generate motivation and there is no lack of that here at the club. The desire and attitude levels are high and that gives me confidence that we can be competitive with the current squad.

“Let’s be honest, we should have beaten Leicester because we had the perfect opportunity to strangle them at home and we got a bonus point against Exeter.”

Outside half Brett Connon is yet to make a decision about his future at the club and Diamond added: “There are three or four discussions going on about staying and the simple mathematics are that before we say goodbye to someone we have to make sure the player coming in to replace is better and the value for money is better.”