Walder’s tactical genius key to Falcons success - May
NEWCASTLE legend Tom May believes that Dean Richards’ best move of the summer was promoting Dave Walder to head coach.
While the addition of the likes of Maxime Mermoz and Toby Flood to the playing staff attracted most of the headlines, it is Walder’s move from attack coach to chief lieutenant that has arguably contributed the most to the Falcons’ flying start to the season.
“I’m really excited to see the baton change between him and Dave Walder,” said May, who made a record 193 Premiership appearances for Newcastle between 1999 and 2009.
“With Dave taking responsibility for the playing side and Dean taking care of the managerial side of things, I think that is a really good balance. It is a major league signing in itself.
“Dave has been instrumental in the way they have played this year. He instils confidence in what is a young group of players to go out and try things.
“His tactical appreciation of the game will be rubbing off on those young lads. You can see it in the likes of Chris Harris, who has a lot of similar traits to Noony (Jamie Noon) and guys like Joel Hodgson, who has been a different player since he came back to Newcastle.” Having Richards’ broad shoulders to deflect the burden of blame is another plus side to the arrangement. “I think you need that because it (head coach) is a fairly lonely place at times,” May added. “It is your neck on the line if results go badly. To have a coaching team with such experience in it, with John Wells, Micky Ward and Mark Laycock, who’ve been at the club a long time, means they can bounce ideas off each other. “They seem a pretty relaxed bunch, which is not something you’d necessarily associate with some of the other sides.”
For May, notorious moaner Walder was always a Premiership head coach in the making, even if he is now getting a taste of his own medicine.
“Out of any of the lads I was playing with, Dave was always likely to be the one that made that step into coaching because he has a really good understanding of tactics and the detail.
“Dave is a great bloke but when we were all together as a young group he was always moaning. It was funny, the other day I said to him that he now had the right to moan at everyone because he was a coach but he said, ‘mate, as soon as I became coach, everyone moaned at me!’ I don’t think he knew that was part of the job description!”