Welcome to HELL: what it’s really like to train at a Premiership Rugby team as Newcastle drill sergeant leaves us unable to do a single pull-up

6.30am. Kingston Park, Newcastle. As he leads MailSport and Falcons assistant Alan Dickens on a brutal crack-of-dawn weights circuit – one he has nicknamed ‘Pump Club’ – Steve Diamond is in his element.

‘You won’t be able to lift your pen tomorrow!’ shouts the Newcastle director of rugby, a wicked grin spreading across his face as he revels in his new training partner’s struggles.

‘I’ve got 20 years on you! We only train what you see – that means upper body!’ Soon enough – and far quicker than I’d like to admit – my arms begin to feel like jelly. The 55-year-old Diamond, meanwhile, ploughs on relentlessly.

An invitation to join the Falcons for a day in camp ahead of the new Gallagher Premiership season was readily accepted. But it came at a price. Diamond insisted ‘Pump Club’ participation was a mandatory requirement in exchange for behind-the-scenes access.

By 7am, as the bench press reps mount up and the 15 kilo dumbbells I’m lifting begin to feel heavier and heavier, I start to wonder if the pain is worth it. After two rounds, the finale includes pull-ups – an exercise I struggle with at the best of times. The lactic acid build-up means I cannot even manage one. Diamond – a man two decades my senior – steps in to help lift me up and down. Embarrassing. I wonder what Newcastle’s hard-nosed forwards, who are working out elsewhere in the gym, are making of it all. It would be hard to argue if they thought me a soft touch. Days later, my arms are still aching and serve as a reminder of my Newcastle exertions. 

Diamond agreed to speak with reporter Alex Bywater (left) only if he took part in ‘Pump Club’

Diamond is the man charged with bringing Newcastle – who didn’t win a Premiership game last season – out of the doldrums. Dickens is his key lieutenant. 

Diamond has not only convinced his old friend into joining him back at English club rugby’s coalface, but also becoming his gym buddy. The deal is that if Dickens trains with him twice a day during work hours, Diamond will cook tea for the pair at the flat they now share on Newcastle’s Quayside.

‘I’ve lost five kilos since I started training with Dimes,’ says Dickens. ‘He’s relentless!’

Diamond adds: ‘I’ve known Dicko for 24 years. I convinced him to give up a teaching job to play for me at Sale and I’ve worked with him everywhere since then. He’s a brilliant coach.

‘We did fall out, but now we’re back and even living together! It’s like a love story!’

The workout at Newcastle’s Kingston Park Stadium left Bywater’s arms feeling like jelly

Assistant Alan Dickens (left) – who joined Newcastle in July – also took part in ‘Pump Club’ 

Diamond and Dickens did not go easy on Bywater during the early morning workout

Newcastle’s recent chapters have been more like tales of woe. The 2023/24 campaign was the nadir for a club who have become used to propping up the Premiership.

But in the charismatic and energetic Diamond, the Falcons hope they have a boss who can make them competitive once again. ‘Pump Club’ is just the start of Diamond’s day.

‘We don’t hang about here you know,’ he says, as I desperately try and rehydrate post-gym and Diamond makes his way for a shower before an 8am coaching meeting. ‘Are you coming or not?’

Newcastle and Diamond’s willingness to open the doors to their team environment is unusual in modern professional sport. In the shower room, Diamond breaks the news to forwards coach Micky Ward that their international prop Eduardo Bello has suffered a serious knee injury on Argentina duty.

‘Felipe Contepomi rang me last night and said it doesn’t look good,’ says Diamond. ‘And he’s a doctor! We’ll have to put our feelers out for tightheads now but I’m not bringing in permanent signings when I’ve got young players to give a chance to.

‘I’ve never let injuries bother me. They give a chance to someone else.’

Ward responds: ‘If the worst comes to the worst Dimes, we’ll have to have a go!’

Seeing Diamond’s gym prowess up close and personal, you wouldn’t be all that surprised if he could still do a job in the front row. Still, there is a deathly silence when the Bello news is broken in the coaching meeting. The Puma is one of Newcastle’s most important players.

Diamond has spent the summer quite literally rebuilding the Falcons. When he first arrived in January, initially as a consultant, he lamented the fact he couldn’t make a cup of tea in the office as there was no sink or running water. Diamond promptly sent his team manager and analyst to IKEA to buy a flatpack kitchen unit and installed it himself.

A lot of work has been done since Newcastle failed to win a single league game last season

Forwards coach Micky Ward pictured (right) alongside Dickens, Bywater and Diamond

Diamond likes to entertain his staff with magic tricks. He took his players on a pre-season trip to Cumbria for a weekend of camping. Newcastle’s squad brought their own tents. Canoeing, paddle boarding, cricket and axe throwing were the activities. One player turned up for the weekend armed only with a hammock and a crate of Stella.

Then came a night on the beer and karaoke at Penrith Rugby Club. Elliott Obatoyinbo impressed with a rap song prior to Diamond dressing up as Simon Cowell to judge a talent show where the players had to produce some form of artistic performance. One group made a spoof episode of ‘Through the Keyhole’ in which they surreptitiously ‘obtained’ the keys to Diamond’s apartment. Dickens’ role in that episode has come firmly under the microscope.

‘My cricket matches are very different to the ones you see at Lord’s,’ says Diamond, who acted as umpire. ‘In my cricket if someone hits a six, the bowler drinks two cans of lager. If you’re bowled out, the batsman drinks two cans of lager. It’s a derivative of The Hundred! If any private equity firms want to invest in it, they’ll have to come through me. Tell them it’s Steve Diamond Enterprises!’

He continues: ‘My reputation means I’ve missed out on some big jobs, but one thing I do know about is gelling a group together. It doesn’t always have to involve alcohol. It’s a simple formula.

‘Contrary to popular belief, I use the carrot not the stick. Coaches talk about creating culture. I think that’s a b*******’ word but you have to make people feel involved.

‘People say I’m old school, but I care about my players. They get lots of time off with me but when they’re here, I expect them to work hard.’

Diamond wants Newcastle to be a gritty team who epitomise the spirit of the city they represent. ‘This is the true north’ reads the sign above the Kingston Park tunnel as the players run out for matches. Diamond’s guiding principles for the Falcons are the ‘Three H’s’. Hostile. Hungry. The third ‘H’ is unprintable but references Diamond’s desire for his team to be physical on the field.

‘The camping trip is a tried and tested method. It was two to three days with no rugby,’ Diamond says. ‘There was no need to go abroad. We need to make the boys earn the nice things.’

Diamond and Bywater pictured pointing to the ‘True North’ sign at the Kingston Park stadium

The other side of the inspirational sign features the slogans ‘Do the work’ and ‘100% Falcons’

To see Diamond’s methods close hand is to witness a master motivator at work. MailSport was given a seat in Newcastle’s inner sanctum. From lunch to gym sessions and player and coaching meetings, nothing was off limits.

The Falcons both play and train at Kingston Park. On the stadium walls, pictures of Jonny Wilkinson, the late Doddie Weir and Rob Andrew serve as a reminder of the club’s glory days.

Diamond empowers his assistant coaches to lead. His mantra is ‘Why have a dog and bark yourself?’ Players are encouraged to have a voice.

As I sit at the back of Ward’s forwards meeting, observing, four words cause me to jump out of my seat even after a morning in the gym. ‘Alex, come on up.’ Trouble. Ward likes to bring a challenge to each of his get-togethers and my presence in camp means I am not exempt.

Thankfully, despite my worst fears, the task is simple – rolling three tennis balls towards a series of points scoring targets. The impact of ‘Pump Club’ means doing that is challenging enough.

While my performance is far from a personal best, a score of 15 beats Newcastle’s team of front rowers. I chalk it down as something of a victory and return to my seat.

‘Hear that?’ says Diamond, as the famous Kingston Park wind whistles through a gap in the door.

‘That’s magnificent for us. Bristol will be practicing their line-outs in their lovely indoor training centre without a breath of wind. They’re coming here on Friday and it will be very different.

‘We’ve got to learn to understand the weather in Newcastle better than anyone else. By training at Kingston Park each day, we’re getting used to that.

‘We’ll have some advantages by playing here.

‘We got beat 85-14 by Bristol last season and we play them first up this year. If we get beat 80-0, it would be an improvement, wouldn’t it? But we’ve got a totally different mindset this year.’

A photo taken during a forwards meeting led by coach Ward inside the Kingston Park stadium

Newcastle train at Kingston Park as well as playing all of their home fixtures at the stadium

‘The attitude change was necessary because the club has practically not won a game for two years. I don’t think anyone has done more Premiership seasons than me. You journalists think we won’t win a game again. That’s fantastic. 

‘Newcastle have been bottom of the league for all but one of the last four years, so they’ve had a systemic failure. Last year wasn’t a blip.

‘But if we keep bringing up the past, it’s not going to help anybody. It’s a remarkable group of young lads here because they didn’t win a game last season and they don’t appear to be damaged by it. Only time will tell whether my mind-bending works on them but I think we will put a cat amongst the pigeons in the league this year.

‘If I was selfish, I’d say if we won only one or two games, it would be a fair bit better than last season but that’s not what I’m about. I want to be challenging for Europe.’

Diamond’s team meeting at midday is his chance to lay out his message. Cam Neild, who was signed to bring a hard edge to the team, is the butt of the jokes after suffering a broken arm in the pre-season game with Sale. Newcastle’s players drove to that tie themselves, stayed in a Travelodge, and got the tram to the match.

Diamond has stripped back his squad for 2024/25. Newcastle’s budget is dwarfed by the likes of Bath, but that is no excuse for poor performance in Diamond’s book. In his meetings, he stresses the Falcons haven’t been good enough at the basics required to win Premiership matches. The message is clear. There are plenty of expletives.

The new Premiership season is just a week away and Newcastle are determined to do better

Newcastle lost 40-39 against Sale Sharks in a recent pre-season friendly at Heywood Road

Newcastle’s warm-up with a strong Sale side showed signs of progression. A single-figure penalty count was one such example. ‘F****** hell, we couldn’t score a try last season. I want to get the positivity up. We are coming from nowhere on attack,’ says Diamond, who insists Newcastle’s players and staff eat together and clean up after themselves.

He has also demanded the club operates on a stable financial footing. By mid-afternoon, Diamond’s rugby work is largely done. But he never winds down. He returns to the gym with Dickens for round two of ‘Pump Club’ – a session I’m thankfully allowed to miss.

More than 12 hours after first arriving on site, Diamond is still going strong come the early evening in which he hosts a question and answer with Newcastle supporters. He has the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. He doesn’t sugarcoat things. His presence holds the room.

If Newcastle’s players show the character, physical strength and hunger of their boss this season, then they may well be capable of upsetting the Premiership apple cart.

‘The interesting thing is that 17 to 20 players have left and only three of them have got a job elsewhere in the Premiership. That shows I was right with the jettison,’ Diamond says.

‘Money is important in rugby, but it’s not as important as having a good set of lads.’Look at the Premier League in football. You don’t see Brighton or Brentford moaning about what Manchester United are spending. They just beat them!’