Radical Diamond 'remedy' implemented at Newcastle after latest loss

Steve Diamond has delivered a brutally honest verdict on his struggling Newcastle players who head to Sale Sharks on Friday night weighed down by a 24-game Gallagher Premiership losing run. Last Saturday’s 10-42 loss to Leicester Tigers at home continued that dreadful run and Diamond’s debrief identified basic errors by the players and coaches and the absence of a viable plan B when they failed to match the visitors’ physicality and kicking game.

Newcastle will now have to deal with the expected Sale return of Tom and Ben Curry. England wing Adam Radwan is fit to return and Pumas lock Pedro Rubiolo will start, but the Falcons’ lack of confidence and game understanding is a major worry.

As a result, Diamond has reduced their attacking options from the 17 they wanted to implement against Tigers to just five, the coach admitting: “If people think that is a Steve Diamond mentality then they are right.

“Notwithstanding that I got it wrong (preparing the team), there is a certain amount of knowledge you need as a player and there are still players here who do not understand what we are trying to do.

“You don’t put that into them by shouting at them and so you have to strip it back, simplify as much as you can but be able to play that game. For example, on Saturday our props carried the ball 21 times yet passed the ball 23 times.

“It reminded me about Manchester United under (Jose) Mourinho where they passed the ball left and right and never went forward, lost the ball and conceded. Boom. That is what happened to us against Leicester.

“So we have our big fellas becoming ball players and that is where we got it wrong as coaches and we will remedy that quickly. There is only Ellis Genge and few other props who can fling passes out the back door in phase play and we have tried to do that and we will go away from it.

“I will be directing and poking the cattle in the right direction on the field for the next three or four weeks. We couldn’t go to plan B and we are stripping it back. Instead of having – and it sounds ridiculous – 17 options of what to do, we now have five. We will competitive doing that because the frustrating bit is we weren’t competitive.”