Saints might look a little different this year, with the departure of some key players, the controversy of the rebranded badge and some new signings about to take to the hallowed Franklins' Gardens turf. Hilary Scott chatted to coaches and players about preparations for the new season.
For the coaching squad it’s business as usual – albeit with a new-ish addition in sports psychologist Oli Dixon – fresh from working with the British Olympic team. In an age when mental health has become less of a taboo for sports clubs to talk about, the team at Saints are determined that fitness isn’t just physical.
Head Coach Sam Vesty said: “It’s no big secret. We spend a lot of time training the top two inches, as much as, you know, the quads and the hamstrings. I think it’s really important that in that five weeks off, you managed to get away and get away from rugby too, and when you come back it’s a reset. You can’t just be mentally strong, it’s a skill you have to practice just like any other muscle.”
Director of Rugby Phil Dowson added: “We spent a long time last year trying to find the right psychologist and went through a lot of different ways of doing it, some say it’s not an exact science and not an easy fix. And so I spent a long time talking to different people and towards the end of last season, we had Oli Dixon come in. And he had an immediate impact. He then was off working with the British team in the Olympics.
“It covers so many different things – dealing with losing games, in terms of separating your personal life from your game life, because sometimes that can cross over and become an issue.
“We’re a young group and we’re learning as we go along and from a coaching point of view, we want to get better in terms of how that happens as well and Ollie’s been very, very helpful and has got ideas around some of the things that are really important, especially on leadership [after senior players like Waller, Lawes and Ludlam leaving]. How can we grow these young men into leaders within our environment, and Ollie’s been great at that.”
Fullback George Furbank is one of many Saints players who had a busy 23-24 season, not only lifting the Premiership trophy, but also on international duty for the Six Nations and then the tour of New Zealand and Japan with England.
“I’d say off-season is a lot about headspace,” he said. “I was I felt pretty mentally fatigued. It had been a pretty much 13-month season, from the start of pre-season going through to finishing the tour. So I definitely needed a decent bit mental recovery from that off-season and just getting away from rugby entirely, which is good.
“And now I feel fresh and ready to go again. Preseason is a little bit about mental recovery and also mental learnings. We’ve got a sports psychologist who’s going to be with us a lot more now. So hopefully he’s going to help in terms of the performance side of things. But it’s also about getting getting your body back up to scratch again, and we’re ready to go.”
After the success of the Premiership win and then going straight out to New Zealand on tour with England, Furbank says it’s been a whirlwind of a year, and there wasn’t much time to process it all, along with the the departure of big players like Lawes.
“I feel like we took a big onus on ourselves to become more player-led – that’s something we spoke about at the start of the season, rather than being sort of spoon-fed by the coaches, which we had a bit before. Other players like Curtis Langdon and Sam Graham are stepping up, there are more voices now coming into that role as well. It’s a good place to be.
Furbank will certainly be in the running to take on captaincy roles since the departure of Alex Waller, Lawes and Lewis Ludlam, for so long the experienced club leaders. And he’s also got a 100 percent win record as captain: “Yeah. I love it. I think it probably just gives me an extra hunger and extra desire. When you’re captain, the boys look to you in your actions, occasionally words., but more your actions. It gave me an extra hunger and desire to be playing at the top of my game. You never want to be stagnant. But yeah, nothing massive is going to change.
“Like you saw last last preseason, a lot of us put on a bit of weight, and that helped massively. I struggle to keep weight on during the off-season. Some boys balloon, some boys lose a bit of weight. I’ve probably got a kilo so to put on, but I think once I get back into the swing of things I’ll be back to where I was.”
“Last season I just felt like I was back to where I wanted to be playing, and it was probably actually the first time I thought I deserved to be playing for England. Before then, I was happy to be in the squad, but I didn’t necessarily think I deserved to be there. This was like the first time I felt I was in good enough form.
“At Saints we’ve got an unbelievable core fan group here. But we want to keep filling the stadium and the more you can fill it with youngsters, we want to we want to leave a legacy at this club and you need to bring those young guys through as fans, and hopefully get more and more people involved in rugby either as fans or as players.”
Dowson, Vesty and defence coach Lee Radford were emphatic about continuing to build a squad that has its roots in a homegrown, hearty rugby compost. Around 70 percent of the players at the Cinch stadium have come through the academy system, and the squad enjoys events like cricket matches. Dowson wants the squad to feel part of the saints family, learning the history of the club, even taking the cup to the nearby St James Church where it all began.
He said: “Time is so short this year, it’s been quite a compressed pre-season. So I just said, you know the club was founded at that church, St James, down the road. I took the trophy in there. We did a meeting there just for a bit of a change, just where the club was founded.”
While the departures, the club badge change and a new eight year-Professional Game Partnership (PGP) with the RFU – which will see new contracts and an ‘adjudicator’ for decisions between club and country – the new season will have as much going on off the pitch as on it:
Dowson is keen to keep the momentum for Saints, even though changes make the squad look very different this year. He said: “Courtney’s an absolute rock and roll star, he really is a club legend. And clearly his experience, and his know-how and how the lads looked at him in certain moments will be missed. But I think little by little we’re picking up some of that experience and other players are taking on some of his personality under pressure, very cool and calm. I think people like Furbank, Dingers [Fraser Dingwall] and Alex Coles, have picked up huge amounts from just being around him in those games.”
The open top celebration last season was a highlight for the team, says Dowson. “We were so pleased that the players got to experience that in a rugby town, and to see the whole town come out for us and enjoy those celebrations. And then you have to quickly move on because it’s yesterday’s news. Our whole ethos around the club is development, and getting better, and we’re going to have to continue to do that…tactical and technically we have to evolve because, you know, we have a target on our backs now as well.”
The Nenequirer will be bringing you more interviews this week, with Alex Mitchell, Fin Smith, Tommy Freeman and outgoing CE Mark Darbon and his replacement Julia Chapman.
