Diamond knows the principles of winning

AT a rough guess, the number of times Steve Diamond has been mistaken for Aristotle can be counted on the fingers of no hands. He doesn’t have a beard, for starters.

But when it comes to first principles, as defined by the thinker of old, the Worcester boss understands a thing or two. Speaking last week about the need for a swift turnaround in fortunes as Sixways, he was quoted as saying: “To do that, you need lads who are hard cases.” Which, as principles go, is pretty fundamental.

There are plenty of people out there who consider Diamond to be basic in all manner of ways. But hang on just a second: Jack Rowell, who rather fancied himself as a rugby intellectual, was of a similar mind when he set about transforming Bath into something above and beyond at the back end of the amateur era.

Jack may not have said so in terms – and certainly not in public – but he took the view that if the Recreation Grounders were to stack up against the best sides around, they would have to start winning on the far side of the Severn Bridge, in places like Llanelli, Newport and Pontypool. And to do that, they would have to win some fights.

Enter Roger Spurrell and Gareth Chilcott, neither of whom were exactly shy when it came to confrontation. Not far behind them were Richard Lee and John Hall and Graham Dawe. Guess what? Wales became less scary by the season.

Times have changed, it goes without saying, but as Aristotle might have put it, the essence remains. If the fights in rugby happen in different ways nowadays, they are still fights. And Diamond aims to win his share of them.