Newcastle Red Bulls boss Steve Diamond, who has made 16 signings since July, has revealed that he needs to enter the transfer market to pick up another scrum-half.
Diamond’s hand has been forced after Joe Davis and Sam Stuart suffered broken bones, leaving him short of numbers just when he thought he was finished with his recruitment.
He says that he doesn’t want to have to pull out the cheque book every time he suffers an injury problem, but this time, he has no other option, despite Argentina international Simón Benítez Cruz arriving in the North East next week.
“We have got a little issue at scrum-half. We have got Simón Benítez Cruz arriving. We think he will be involved with Argentina at the weekend, and he will be coming here on Monday.
“But he is going to go again in the Autumn internationals. Joe Davis is a real prospect, but he has broken his forearm in an England U20s warm-up game.
“Sam Stuart has got a fractured elbow. The scans have shown a hairline fracture, so he is going through the process at the moment.
“James Elliott did a really good job at the weekend, and Alan Dickens’ son, Jack, who came on trial from Loughborough, was on the bench last weekend. So I am in the market for a nine.”
Previously, Diamond has made some throwaway comments about Bath being the Galaticos of PREM rugby, and this time he’s had a dig at the size of the reigning champions’ squad, despite his own recent glut of signings.
“What I don’t want to do is every time we get a knock, we go running and bring someone else in, or we will have a squad as big as Bath’s if we carry on doing that.
“We have just got to get through the management of players and give the youth the opportunity if it comes,” he told RugbyPass.
Meanwhile, Diamond says that the Red Bulls are still waiting for South African full-back Stefan Coetzee to be granted a work permit before he can link up with his new team-mates and be considered for selection.