On Culture and Change

By Odd Shaped Balls
January 8 2005

On Culture and Change – Saints in Transition (Again) 2004 - 2005 We all know the old cliché about you cannot get better without undergoing change. We are equally well acquainted with the logic of “if it ain’t broke, why fix it?” It’s part of our culture.

Apart from our apparent comfort with the underachieving, inconsistent Saints, we have bought into a culture that expects our heroes to earn the right to play for the Saints, expects them to respect the shirt and the tradition it represents and, however harsh this seems, to leave parts of themselves out on the paddock. The high priest of this culture had a mantra that we have all adopted – Kia Kaha: Be Strong!

It was a few years ago now that I underwent some personal development on introducing change. One of the exercises we did was, with a partner, to make a change in our own appearance and ask the partner to say what it was. They had a devil of a job spotting a single change but once the exercise was to make three or four changes, it was all too obvious.

 

It’s not controversial to say that last season’s 21 departures and similar number of arrivals was change on too great a scale. The ethos the Wayne Smith had developed within the squad over two-and-a-half years was ignored if not swept away. While it lasted, while we had a team that believed as a team in the team, we conjured up three or four decent performances but as the wheel revolved a few more notches, results, belief, team ethics and everything else drained away. It seemed from the stands that we were going through the motions but that there was no determination or conviction in what we were doing. For a whole string of weeks the whole was so much less than the sum of the parts. In that time, only against Llanelli did we approach balance in that particular equation. Fortunately we were against a team as shorn of confidence as our own.

Now that a number of the changes have been discarded and the reins given to Budge Pountney and Paul Grayson – guys with a link to the past, we seem to have rediscovered our spirit. The Toulouse game at FG was the only certain time this season that the whole has been greater than the sum of the parts. Was it a question of going back to go forward? Whatever it was, the culture nurtured by Smudger was alive and in residence at Franklins Gardens.

Having re-kindled the spirit, now that the guts are on display, it is time we rediscovered our class. Mostly it resides within the individuals who can turn games for us. Shane Drahm provided a moment of it for us against London Irish over Christmas. We need for our other performers with that blessing of a little bit extra to step up and do a turn or two. Hard work and commitment may stave off relegation and as delighted as we are to see that return to the game plan, I don’t believe that either the board or the players will be satisfied with just that.

 

Wayne Smith wasn’t brought here to dig us out of our 2001 – 2002 mire. He was brought in to take us to the next level such that we could ditch our bridesmaids tag, win something and become serial achievers.

 

Alan Solomons was not brought here to start all over again – he was a proven coach with a top class résumé. He was brought in to add the little bit extra that Wayne hadn’t found in his time here.

Don’t get me wrong: in our precarious position winning is the goal and winning ugly is better than not winning at all. That said would it be ours, the team’s, the board’s ambition that survival next season is enough?

 It is crucial that we survive in the Zurich Premiership; beyond that we need to inject some p-zzaz into our play – something that will give assurance to the faithful and the directors that we have resumed an upward path.

 

Rumours and reports surround Ben Cohen and another 14 (not all names are known) – say half the rumoured number, including one “big name”, leave. Another close season of massive change would seem be on the cards. By September, it will be easier to count the survivors of Wayne’s last season than to list the changes.

 

That is not an ideal environment into which to introduce yet more change. But what if we don’t survive? What if we don’t bring back the sort of style to our play that made us last season’s leading scorers of tries? What if we only look as though the best we can hope for next season is lower/mid table mediocrity?

 

Without re-establishing ourselves as a team of style AND substance, it is difficult to see that our beloved Saintsmen will be entrusted with the future of Northampton Saints. Were the gut-wrenchingly awful to happen, we would be plunged into another summer of turmoil. And we would all be praying for another Wayne Smith experience rather than the Alan Solomons variety.

 

Kia Kaha!