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‘Right then,’ says Steve Diamond. The room falls silent. He is about to address his players for the first time ahead of their inaugural PREM campaign as the Newcastle Red Bulls.
The meeting room at Kingston Park is old-school. Full of history. There are pictures of former players on the walls and a few bean bags in the corner. It will not be long before it is given a revamp.
An image appears on the projector screen: YEAR ZERO.
‘If the training session’s good today, we’re off tomorrow,’ Diamond says. ‘If it’s not good, we’re in at 8am. Fair enough?
'What I don’t want to do is take away any enthusiasm, but I don’t want us drinking the Kool-Aid and thinking we’re f***ing Real Madrid. We’ve got five league games coming up and they’re tough games. If we don’t get our minds right, then we’ll get a real good hiding. Do I make myself clear?’
There are nods and a muttering of yesses. Spirits are high after the takeover. A record crowd of 9,100 turned out for the pre-season PREM Cup win over Harlequins. Milk floats were dispatched around the local area, delivering four packs of Red Bull with a QR code to activate two tickets. There were DJs in Hummers and an explosion of pyrotechnics.
Newcastle director of rugby Steve Diamond is presiding over a team that has been completely overhauled
Daily Mail Sport was granted access to the Red Bulls' team meetings ahead of their first season since the rebrand
‘If the training session’s good today, we’re off tomorrow,’ Diamond tells his players. ‘If it’s not good, we’re in at 8am. Fair enough?
Diamond flicks through to the next slide: Belief, knowledge, skill, motivation.
‘What’s gone on behind the scenes is brilliant,’ he continues. ‘It gives us security and peace of mind. We’ve not had that for two years. We won two league games in three years. Now we can concentrate on the job in hand.
‘Let the world crack on with this explosion of fireworks behind us but let’s do our work quietly. Let’s keep our heads below the parapet as a team and go and eek out wins.
'Against Saracens on Friday, we’ve got to be at our very best and they’ve got to be average. That happens. The pressure’s on them. Get our basics right. At half-time against Harlequins: 99 tackles, one missed. We’re a good team if we do that.’
Daily Mail Sport has been invited to spend a day behind the scenes. It begins with a 6.30am gym session, before the backroom staff pull together their chairs to plan the morning. The medical staff deliver an injury update, clips are shown from a university game and one of the performance staff briefs about a meeting with Red Bull analysts from Austria.
Diamond has news to share about a potential recruit. ‘Liam Williams is coming in about half an hour,’ he reveals. ‘If that goes well with his medical, we’ll get that nailed today. We’ve got young back-threes and he’s got a wealth of experience. He’s a hard b*****d. He was a scaffolder ‘til he was 24 and now he’s close to 100 caps. He’s the sort of bloke we want in the gang.’
Diamond recently met Williams by a hotel pool on their holidays in Majorca. For years, there has been a talent drain at Newcastle. Finances have been squeezed, forcing local favourites such as Trevor Davison, Callum Chick and Adam Radwan to join rival clubs.
Now the trend is reversing. With Red Bull’s financing behind them, Diamond is leading a recruitment drive. His phone is red-hot with messages from agents offering players who will be available next summer. The likes of Alex Mitchell, Fin Smith, Jack Willis, George Martin and Joe Marchant are all out of contract. Marchant also happens to be the future son-in-law of local hero Alan Shearer, having recently got engaged to the footballer’s daughter, Hollie. A match made in Tyneside?
‘I got hold of 226 names who we could have brought in for this season,’ reveals Diamond. ‘For next season, there’s obviously a lot more, and the quality gets higher. Internationals are out of contract.
Diamond's phone has been lighting up all summer with calls from potential signings
The Red Bull branding is already widespread at the club's Kingston Park stadium
A core of young players has been supplemented by several international stars
'There are internationals who probably want to come back to England so they can get picked for the World Cup. Agents send over lists of players, coaches, and strength and conditioning staff but there’s more to it than just picking 15 guys who look good on paper.’
Even Antoine Dupont’s name has been brought up. ‘He’d be super, wouldn’t he?’ says Diamond, grinning. ‘His name’s been mentioned four or five times. You’ve got to get the right nine and 10.
'There’s got to be a balance to it. You can’t rip the soul out of the club. You need guys who can play in the great north wind you get up here. I think the days of people leaving have gone and there’s 20-odd current players who are good enough to stay.
‘In the past, people left for ambition. Some of the lads we advised to go because we didn’t know what situation the club would be in. Callum Chick, Jamie Blamire, Radders. The first person who messaged me after we beat Harlequins was Callum.
'You would look at bringing back guys like Trevor Davison and Josh Hodge but it’s just as important to look at the way Oscar Usher and Oli Spencer play. What’s the saying? “The King is dead, long live the King”. The next generation is coming through and it’s important we nurture them and grow more of them. We need more boots on the ground in the community.’
As deliveries of merchandise and new infrastructure arrived outside, the players inside split into groups of forwards and backs. They get ready in the changing rooms that were completely rebranded within 24 hours, brightened up with a striking paint job.
Red Bull executives flew over from Austria for the Harlequins game and decided the new kit should be re-made because the logos were not clear enough. Money talks. They will replace the team’s long bus journeys with charter flights. Discussions are underway for a pre-season camp at the company’s HQ in Austria next summer.
Ideas such as manufacturing tackle bags that look like Red Bull cans are being thrown around. Eventually they will install cryotherapy chambers and a recovery pool. Nothing is off the table - including stadium redevelopment. The new owners took on £39million worth of debt from former owner Semore Kurdi, ending fears about administration and even a potential move to Darlington. Now the market has swung.
Kurdi told Daily Mail Sport: ‘I wasn’t in a position to make the club competitive. It was about survival and that’s a downward spiral. That’s when I had to move it onto someone bigger and stronger in the financial world and the sports world.
Red Bull will replace the team’s long bus journeys with charter flights. Discussions are underway for a pre-season camp at the company’s HQ in Austria next summer
Red Bull executives flew over from Austria for the Harlequins game and decided the new kit should be re-made because the logos were not clear enough
Inside the club's inner sanctum, the backroom staff are preparing for the PREM campaign
‘Red Bull came up for a meeting and moved pretty quickly once they made up their mind. They had looked at a few clubs. They did all their due diligence, probably speaking to every governing body. They understood what they were doing.
‘They explained what they do, how they do it and how they would pretty much guarantee the future of the club. Look at what they did with their football team, Leipzig, who went up four divisions and into the Champions League. They can do things for the club I wish I could have done. Signing players, giving the place that first-class feel, making the academy feel more like a first-team operation.
‘We had planning permission for a new north and east stand but then we got relegated and Covid hit. They’ve got a year or two to build the support base and, if I were them, once the ground starts filling up then you look to expand. Red Bull can provide what’s needed to do that. I have no doubt they’ll have the club at the top of the table in a couple of years.’
This season, Kurdi will be watching from the stands, free from the stresses of ownership. Yet no one is expecting the club’s new wings to take them straight to the top. As Diamond points out, they are not going to transform into rugby’s Real Madrid overnight.
They have bolstered their squad with internationals Christian Wade, Amanaki Mafi, Hame Faiva and Simon Benitez Cruz, meaning they will no longer be regarded as easy pickings.
The atmosphere has transformed, making the club an easy sell to players like Williams, the former British and Irish Lion, who arrives around 10am and completes his medical within an hour.
‘Looks like I’ve got my new home,’ says Williams to Daily Mail Sport, as his agent finalises details with Diamond outside in the stands.
All signed up then? ‘Looks that way. I’m happy with where the club are looking to get to. It’s an exciting place, with Red Bull behind them. I only spoke to Dimes on Tuesday and it’s now Thursday. I came up and had a quick chat with some of the physios, who had a look at my body.
Former Wales and British & Irish Lions star Liam Williams has signed up to join the Newcastle revolution
Former England winger Christian Wade, who is just eight tries shy of Chris Ashton's PREM record, has also joined
'There’s got to be a balance to it. You can’t rip the soul out of the club. You need guys who can play in the great north wind you get up here'
‘I’ll fly back to Bristol this evening and I just need a couple of days to sort out my life back home. My cousin’s husband’s an estate agent so I’ve already been speaking to him.
'I’ll probably come up here on my own for the first little bit because I can’t just move my wife, my baby and the dog straight up. I’ll look on the market to rent, preferably something with a sofa in!’
Williams is ready to join the party and more will follow suit. The parties will get bigger and better. Year zero is full of promise.
Rugby fans in Newcastle have had their fair share of hardships since the glory days of Jonny Wilkinson. His image still hangs by the door at Kingston Park, but there is a growing belief that they will soon have some new hometown heroes.
