‘I want to coach with England – just not yet’
Sam Vesty is tipped for great things but wants to stay with Saints attack, he tells Daniel Schofield
Sam Vesty, the Northampton attack coach, has an interesting take on the idea that the best players rarely make the best coaches. “There is a guaranteed causal relation between being a coach and being slow,” Vesty says. “If you can run round someone then you are going to keep running round someone. If you can’t do that then you have to find a different way to move the ball or find space for people who can do those things. That’s when you start thinking like a coach.”
Despite making more than 200 Premiership appearances with Leicester and Bath, winning multiple titles and gaining two England caps, Vesty harshly describes himself as a player as both “slow” and “bob average”.
Perhaps that is why he is considered to be one of the brightest attacking minds in English rugby. Since being appointed by Chris Boyd, the director of rugby, in 2018, Vesty has helped transform Northampton into one of the Premiership’s most dynamic and thrilling sides.
At this early stage in the league, Northampton top the charts for points and tries scored, metres gained and clean breaks made.
With England in need of a new attack coach after Scott Wisemantel’s departure, Vesty should be seen as the leading domestic candidate. He was also seconded to work with Eddie Jones as an attacking consultant on the 2017 tour to Argentina.
Vesty, however, has ruled himself out of the running – at least for the time being.
“Am I interested? Not currently, no,” Vesty says. “At the moment, to be the best I can be, I need to coach every day and spend time doing the hard yards. Working with Boydy, I am learning lots and hopefully I am getting better. Argentina was awesome. I am really thankful to Eddie for taking me and it was a really good part of my learning and very formative. It is something I would like to do at some point in the future.” Jones recently described the Premiership in his autobiography as “stodgy” with a “widespread lack of imagination and skill”, but no one who has watched Northampton this season or last could accuse them of lacking imagination or skill.
The contrast with the conservatism under previous director of rugby, Jim Mallinder, is stark. Yet the transformation has not been accomplished simply by opening the chequebook. Instead, Boyd turned to the previously dormant academy talents of Rory Hutchinson, George Furbank, Alex Mitchell, James Grayson and Fraser Dingwall.
“The boys were here, they just needed a bit of encouragement and the freedom to make mistakes,” Vesty says. “If they are encouraged to go and make decisions then you can learn from the good and the bad. What I really don’t like is when players are discouraged from making decisions. Then you are not getting better as a player, you are just a robot. We have structures, but our structures are there to get on the front foot and then all bets are off.”
Most of Vesty’s playing days were spent with Leicester, whom Northampton host on Saturday. He is Leicester born and bred, with three generations of his family before him representing the Tigers. “The rivalry from the fans is borne out of the fact they are cut from the same cloth,” Vesty says. “The clubs are both working class, Midlands towns. That’s what sparks the rivalry.”
Vesty’s first love was actually cricket. His proudest sporting moment came not on a rugby field but as a wicketkeeper for Leicestershire second XI in stumping former India captain Mohammad Azharuddin.
“He told me he was going down the track, I signalled to our leg-spinner to send it down the leg side, he did and I stumped him,” Vesty says, adding, “he got sent down for match-fixing after that.”