As Sale struggle for form, Steve Diamond continues to look out of touch with the modern game

Diamond, in many ways the embodiment of rugby’s 'old school', was his usual brooding self after Sales' defeat by Wasps on Saturday

Sale look set for a long season under Steve Diamond (Getty)

There was something slightly chilling about Steve Diamond warning his players to expect an “old school” training session on Monday after they suffered the indignity of being outmuscled by Wasps over the weekend.

What exactly the 50-year-old director of rugby meant was not clear, and may never be known as it will happen away from the media’s prying eye at the club’s Carrington Road training ground, but one thing is certain: it won’t be pleasant.

Diamond, in many ways the embodiment of rugby’s “old school”, was his usual brooding, menacing self after his team lost their third game of what looks set to be a long season for the ever-dwindling band of reporters who cover the club, let alone the players whose livelihoods depends upon it.

The lack of scrutiny on Sale feels unhealthy. History tells us where the media fear to tread, problems will arise.

Steve Diamond was his usual brooding self after Sale’s defeat by Wasps (Getty)

“Did you watch the game?” Diamond growled at the solitary local reporter who dared ask a question in Saturday’s excruciatingly awkward post-match press conference. It followed a game where journalists were not provided with working Wifi at their seats to file live copy from the stands or access to television replays in order to check contentious moments in the game.

After five questions, the local reporter gave up. No-one else could be bothered. Life, after all, is too short.

“Is that it?” Diamond grunted as the most awkward of awkward stony silences fell, before walking out to the relief of everyone in the room.

Diamond – whose club remains locked in a long-running legal battle with former scrum half Cillian Willis over the alleged mishandling of a string of concussions in 2013 which led to the player’s premature retirement – had spent much of Saturday’s game barking instructions down a microphone to an assortment of pitch-side trainers and medics.

Sometimes they would look up to the stands, put their thumbs up or smile like puppies seeking approval from their master. Diamond wasn’t hard to spot as there were considerably fewer than 7,000 other people inside the AJ Bell Stadium.

“There’s six minutes until half time, he’s staying on,” Diamond was clearly heard to say when flanker Ben Curry lay prone on the pitch after suffering a neck injury in the 34th minute. Curry did indeed stay on. What Diamond says at Sale, goes.

The Sales boss gave an intensely awkward press conference after Saturday’s defeat (Getty Images)

“What’s wrong with him? Get him up,” he demanded midway through the second half when another Sale player with a facial injury was being tended by team medics.

This was the same Diamond who three weeks ago implied on-field medics are now too conservative after Tom Curry was knocked unconscious against Harlequins and taken from the field on a stretcher.

“Tom’s fine,” the former Sale hooker, entrepreneur current board member and one-time Russia Sevens coach said afterwards (having somehow gained a degree in neurology during the actual match).

“He got a knock to the head but nothing serious. If you’re out, and I think he was momentarily knocked out, that’s (medical precautions) what they have to go through.”

This was the same Diamond who was last season hit with a six-week stadium ban for conduct prejudicial to rugby after claiming referee Craig Maxwell-Keys “made decisions up” in Sale’s defeat to Exeter.

“Well he was making it up, wasn’t he?” Diamond said then. “The ref was making the decision up. There were 40 or 50 rucks that should have been penalised if that’s a penalty.

“If you’ve got someone who is occasionally weak-minded, and it looked like that in the last two or three minutes, those people tend to give those decisions to what is perceived to be the stronger team.”

This was the same Diamond who, in 2011, was given a 12-week suspended ban after admitting a charge of pushing Northampton Saints performance director Nick Johnston and making inappropriate comments in a TV interview.

Will Cliff in action for Sale during Saturday’s game against Wasps (Getty Images)

The same Diamond who was banned for 18 weeks for abusing match officials the following year and the same Diamond who publicly criticised the player welfare driven Head Injury Assessment (HIA) in 2016 when he was forced to move scrum half Mike Philips to the wing in the second half of a game after concussed fly half Dan Mugford had been removed by medics.

“All you need now is a slap on the head and they (medics) have you off the field for 13 minutes,” Diamond said. “I don’t know where we’re going with it.”

Of course Diamond – or “Dimes” as he is known by some – blamed his players for the loss on Saturday. Who else’s fault could it be? Certainly not Diamond’s or any of his strutting, muscle-bound coaching staff, most of whom would look more at home on the door of a Salford nightclub than they would coaching young men to play a sport with wit, skill and intelligence.

“Some of what we are doing in training seems to be too difficult for our players,” he said.

“We’ve got a bit to do. Maybe back to a bit of old school on Monday.”

The mind does boggles at what that may mean. But, after seven years in control at Sale, no doubt Steve Diamond knows best.