Steve Diamond appointed Edinburgh boss effective immediately
Steve Diamond has been appointed Edinburgh head coach until at least the end of the season. Diamond was on a three-man shortlist, also understood to feature former Wasps boss Lee Blackett and Blues head coach Leon MacDonald, to succeed Mike Blair.
The 55-year-old has been without a club since Worcester Warriors entered administration in September. Having formed a consortium which fell short of rescuing Worcester, Diamond is eager to return to coaching and is expected to be formally unveiled by Edinburgh on Friday.
The Scottish outfit slumped to a heavy home loss to URC leaders Leinster on Friday night, their eighth defeat in nine URC matches and another dent to their play-off hopes.
They have impressed in the Champions Cup, however, and travel to Premiership holders Leicester Tigers for a last-16 clash on 31 March.
Blair announced his decision to step down from his first head coach role last month, having felt the ‘all-consuming’ nature of the job was impacting his work and time on the field. The former Scotland captain is focused, in the short term, on becoming a ‘world-class attack coach’ and Diamond would like him to remain with Edinburgh in that capacity.
The former Sale Sharks supremo is keen to add Nick Easter, who he brought to Worcester Warriors, as defence specialist should he remain in the job long term.
Best known for his multiple stints at Sale as a player, coach and director of rugby, Diamond’s latter spell in Manchester ran for nearly eight years, yielding a Premiership Cup, the development of local talent and, with increased financial backing, the recruitment of world champion Springboks. Two years after his departure, Sale are vying with Saracens at the Premiership summit.
Meanwhile, Edinburgh are attempting to bring Diamond's former hooker, Ewan Ashman, north from Sale next season.
The Scotland hooker has two years remaining on his Sharks contract but Edinburgh are understood to be willing to significantly increase his current salary.
Ashman, who turns 23 next month, is hugely admired by Gregor Townsend and part of the national coach's wider Six Nations squad.
He has featured 14 times for Sale this season, starting their past three matches, and scored five tries.
Latest Comments
Skelton may be brought back for the Wallabies so that would be the only reason that may hinder Wilson. Easily the form, most skilful and game IQ of any Oz 8. Valentini’s best and favourite position is 6, but lineouts may be an issue with Skelton, Valentini and Wilson. Will be interesting what Schmidt goes for but for me Wilson should be picked on form. Schmidt rewards work rate, skill and consistency. All that glitters every so often won’t be in contention. Greely is one of those players that has a knack of making the right decision. A coach is going to love him because he knows week in week out he’s going to get the job done. The second try Greely wasn’t the guy who made the initial break it was Flook, Greely was at the bottom of the ruck when Flook was off along the sideline. Greely got up and made the effort to catch up with play but also read the play nicely and hit the pass from Campbell at pace and then held the pass beautifully to Ryan.
Go to commentsSharks deserved to be far further back by the last quarter. Their tackling was awful, their set pieces were disappointing, their defensive organization was poor (especially on the Kok side of the D line), they kept making unnecessary errors, and they never looked like cracking the Clermont defense during those first 60m. Masuku kept them in touch, with some help from the Clermont generosity on penalty opportunities. Agree with the writer of this article. It was belligerence, and ability to raise their pressure game just enough, that turned the last quarter into a Bok-style shutout. Clermont have a reputation of not playing the full 80m, and there was a bit of that for sure. But, quite often when the intensity of a team drops off in the last quarter credit is due to the opponent for tiring them out. At 60m, with the Kok try, you thought that just maybe the game was on. At 70m, with the Mapimpi contribution, one felt that Clermont were fading, while facing a team that would maintain the pressure game through the final whistle. Good win in the end, but the Sharks are still playing way below their potential. And with their resources, and a coach that has had enough time to figure things out, they are running out of excuses.
Go to comments