Steve Diamond would be last in the queue when it comes to wanting sympathy. A grizzly hooker in his playing days, his get-up-and-get-on-with-it outlook has not changed much since. His resilience – and that of his Newcastle team – is being tested like never before in what looks very much like the impossible job.
Four rounds into last season – their supposed annus horribilis – the Falcons had not won a game but they had at least come close twice against Northampton and Gloucester and secured two losing bonus points. Four rounds into this season, the Falcons have nothing. Zip. Nowt.
Just when it felt like things couldn’t get worse for Newcastle, it seems like they have.
“I thought we’d have around four points by now,” admitted Diamond. “The biggest disappointment is not being in the fight, really.
“The first job is to get close in games and become highly competitive and we’re not at the minute.
“We’ve got to be realists as well as the ultimate optimists. We’re not winning games and we’re not getting close at the moment.
“So how do we change that?
“We change it by good coaching and we change it by keeping the mentality high in the building.”
Easier said than done after 25 successive league defeats.
He’s under-resourced definitely. It’s not a nice place to be. I don’t envy Steve at this moment in time.
After the 42-10 home reverse against Leicester a fortnight ago, Diamond came out all guns blazing calling the performance unacceptable.
In the aftermath of their 43-10 loss at Sale on Friday night, Newcastle’s director of rugby cut a much more subdued figure.
The talk from Diamond and his opposite number Alex Sanderson in the build-up – to fit in with the Premiership’s derby weekend narrative – had been of a northern rivalry between the two clubs. The reality was, there was no rivalry on the field at all. Newcastle were simply unable to compete.
Afterwards Sanderson put a metaphorical arm around Diamond’s shoulder.
“He’s under-resourced definitely. It’s not a nice place to be. I don’t envy Steve at this moment in time,” he said.
Things just haven’t gone Newcastle’s way in the 1st half 😅#GallagherPrem | #SALvNEW pic.twitter.com/WkU7Ds3Cj1
— Rugby on TNT Sports (@rugbyontnt) October 11, 2024
“Investment is crucial. There’s no other way round it. It’s very difficult to compete week to week on half the budget everyone else is. They need to be right on the edge to be competitive.
“I’d like to see them win a couple of games just for the region as much as anything else.”
Sanderson is right. The north of England needs more than just a side in Manchester – or Salford, sorry – capable of swinging punches. The Premiership does too. But at the moment it is a nine-club league with one making up the numbers.
Diamond went into the Falcons with his eyes wide open. He knew he was entering a club at a perilously low ebb. Their best young talent was haemorrhaging south and the purse strings were being tightened.
The club’s Jordanian-Geordie owner Semore Kurdi who, according to Newcastle’s last published accounts had poured £20.3m into the club, had grown tired of signing the cheques. With no other millionaire philanthropists beating his door down in a region not exactly overflowing with them, he wanted to reach break-even point instead.
The side the Falcons have been left with is short on both quality and confidence. They look like a Championship side operating at the wrong level.
Competing against rivals with vastly superior budgets left Diamond with no option but to try to pull off a conjuring trick. Donning his cape and top hat, Diamond made 17 of last season’s squad disappear in a puff of smoke but cutting out the deadwood and slimming down the first team squad to 35 has backfired.
Early-season injuries have hit the Falcons hard. They are without two stand-offs – Kieran Wilkinson and Brett Connon – so have been forced to play a short-term emergency signing Ethan Grayson, who is more of a centre, at 10.
They have been deprived of Argentina tight-head Eduardo Bello to a long-term knee injury, flanker Cam Nield to a broken arm and second row Seb de Chaves whose calf injury developed into deep vein thrombosis. At Sale they were also without centres Sammy Arnold and Connor Doherty.
Other clubs with deeper squads could cover these losses, Newcastle cannot.
The side the Falcons have been left with is short on both quality and confidence. They look like a Championship side operating at the wrong level. The final judgement on Newcastle should not come until they are able to put their frontline team on the field but the picture is looking bleak.
A proud club – Premiership champions in 1998 and four-times cup winners, one that can count Jonny Wilkinson, Rob Andrew and Carl Hayman amongst its alumni – is on its uppers.
Ahead of the season Diamond said if he couldn’t turn the Falcons’ fortunes around no-one could. It was hard to disagree. He knew the English rugby market intimately and how to manage on limited resources having done so at Sale for so long. But there has been no change to the grim direction of travel.
The long-suffering Falcons’ supporters – and there were more than 7,000 still for their last home game – will loyally turn up again for the visit of Exeter on Friday night.
There is an argument the Falcons should be protected from relegation because of their geographical importance to the Premiership but you cannot run an equitable league with one rule for one club and a different one for another.
On paper a home game against the Premiership’s second-bottom club should represent a chance to stop the rot but scan the respective team sheets and it appears a long shot.
It seems certain already Newcastle will finish adrift at the bottom of the table again which, for all the fun and games elsewhere, is not a sign of a league in good health. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
If they do, will they go down?
There is an argument the Falcons should be protected from relegation because of their geographical importance to the Premiership but you cannot run an equitable league with one rule for one club and a different one for another. Either there is relegation – or a relegation play-off – for whoever ends up bottom or there isn’t.
There has been more uncertainty around the issue since the revelation any aspiring Championship club which does not meet the Premiership minimum standards criteria will need planning permission for a stadium expansion by January.
The promotion regulations were supposed to have been relaxed with a grace period introduced for the Championship winners to expand their capacity beyond 10,000 put in place until 2028 but only Doncaster, who currently lie ninth in the Championship, are believed to meet the planning permission requirement.
So should Newcastle finish last they could escape the play-off on a technicality.
Diamond’s view is the play-off will happen.
“I’m hoping that we’re not going to be in that,” he said. “But if we are then we’ll go through that with as much gusto as we’ve got.”
If Newcastle go down then so be it. Diamond doesn’t want anyone’s pity.
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