Cocktails in Magaluf and roast pig under car park!
SECRETS OF NEWCASTLE’S REBIRTH UNDER RICHARDS
THE instruction was simple: ‘2pm meet, Daiquiri Palace, Magaluf. Find your own way there.’
It was midway through preseason and a kitty—made up of fines from Newcastle’s previous campaign — was waiting to be spent on ‘the finest frozen cocktails in the Mediterranean’.
‘Everyone made it there in one piece…just about,’ said scrum-half Micky Young. ‘ The kitty keeps getting smaller, though. We’re driving standards up. People aren’t late now, they don’t miss physio, their phone doesn’t go off in meetings and they don’t wear the wrong kit. Not as many people are facing fines from “The Mob”.’
The beer kitty may be going down but Newcastle are on the up. Since being promoted in 2013, they have made gradual progress each season. It has been slow and steady but Dean Richards’ squad of Falcons have taken flight. The coach has reversed the trend of northern talent moving south to seek fame, fortune and England caps.
‘When I coached Leicester a few years back, your Graham Rowntrees, Dorian Wests, Martin Johnsons and Nick Youngs all came through the academy,’ said Richards. ‘They were a huge core.
‘Here at Newcastle, we rely on local players, guys like our captain, Will Welch. It means a lot to me that we have proud people from the locality. Otherwise it becomes another job and another game.’
The club’s production line has always produced talent. Jonny Wilkinson, Kieran Brookes, Dave Wilson, Geoff Parling, Lee Dickson, Ben Woods, Toby Flood and Hugh Vyvyan are a handful of graduates who moved away — while Young made a U-turn after his four-year stint with Leicester and Bath.
‘When I broke through the ranks, we were used to being near the bottom of the table,’ he said. ‘The club was seen as a bit of a stepping stone and losing became normality so it didn’t hurt as much. Now we see ourselves as a club that should be at the top of the league, a club winning things. The bus journey after a defeat these days isn’t a great place because we value winning.
‘ For guys like Alex Tait, Will Welch, Mark Wilson, Bobby Vickers and Floody, this is our home team and we’re proud of that. It’s up to us to educate new guys about our identity: perceived as outsiders because we’re so far north — underdogs kept out the way and not t hought much of. We’re on a mission to change that perception. We want people to respect us.’
The Falcons are changing perceptions by playing the ‘Kevin Keegan way’ of ‘wearing your heart on your sleeve and expressing yourself ’. They have sold out for the first time since 2008 for today’s game against Leicester — although they are yet to change the perception of England head coach Eddie Jones.
‘I don’t think England always look at us that closely,’ said Richards, who has no players in the latest Red Rose squad. ‘It’s important to realise what players bring to the table in more difficult circumstances.
‘I think the selectors sometimes take the easy option. They see someone week in, week out playing behind a star-studded pack and it’s better the devil you know. They might miss a little trick here. The people you really need are the ones who can shine in adversity.’
The club’s cloth has been cut according to their limited budget. Richards has never spent the full salary cap allowance, although he has added fizz and firepower through the likes of Nili Latu.
The No8 is certainly making his mark. He has taken over as coach of Percy Park RFC and will wait on tables at Doddie Weir’s fundraising dinner this week. He even cooked up a Tongan-style ‘ulu BBQ for the team at training last month. ‘We roasted two pigs in the car park,’ he said. ‘We dug a hole, filled it with stones and left the meat to bake underground for two hours.
‘There’s a good core of us. When we walk away, we want to leave a great era.’
This afternoon’s test will be a barometer of their progress.
‘In the past, as a pack, we struggled with our mental toughness,’ said Latu. ‘ We know now we’re stronger as a pack than as individuals. We have no stars but we know hard work will always beat talent.
‘ We f eel awesome going up against big clubs because we know money doesn’t buy you wins. If that were the case, we wouldn’t even be at the show.
‘Our ultimate aim is to win the competition. Why put a cap on our ambition? Why not this season? Confidence comes from winning. Nobody gave Leicester City any hope but they believed in themselves and did it. If the mindset is right, anything can happen.’