by At the start of 2023, Newcastle, head coach Dave Walder, was building momentum. The Falcons had just won four of their last six Premier League games and there was an increase in stability and cohesion. Around the corner, however, turmoil was waiting.
Towards the end of the season, Newcastle lost two of their front three in the final – George McGuigan and Trevor Davison – as well as Walder. By the start of the ongoing campaign, the squad had changed significantly. Under new head coach Alex Codling, the Falcons currently sit bottom of the league without a win to their name.
The winds of change have come to the Falcons. The gusts, Newcastle said, were necessary to survive. It was, of course, a season in which three Premier League clubs – Worcester, Wasps and London Irish – all went to the wall. Financial sustainability and cutting cloth according to the budget were not only aims for the club, but they were vital.
Such sweeping measures would undoubtedly cause confusion. Professional rugby is, after all, a cut-throat business involving large sums of money and contracts.
Ultimately, however, the path of financial necessity crosses the path of the respect they deserve for those in the club, rather than as pieces of meat.
Telegraph Sport spoke to a number of sources – some of whom did not wish to be identified – who blamed the club’s significant failings in this regard. One such is Carl Fearns, the scrappy full-back who left Newcastle at the end of the previous campaign and who, after a spell in Carcassonne, announced his retirement from the sport last week .
Fearns, 34, felt the need to speak out following Codling’s explosive post-match interview following the thrashing at Leicester earlier this month. The Falcons head coach, in his inaugural season in the North East, questioned the direction of the club in a very public way after some tough results with an underpowered squad.
Fearns spent two seasons at Kingston Park, recruited by former director of rugby Dean Richards. Fearns explains that the club’s head of recruitment, former hurler Matt Thompson, made him a verbal offer over coffee at the Twin Farms pub, close to the Falcons’ stadium. He says he was then kept suspended for two months with no clarity on his future – and no contract offer. Fearns says he didn’t want to go. He understood the budgetary changes taking place at the club but the uncertainty and change of mind left him worried about his livelihood and provision for his family. This account has been confirmed by another unnamed player at the club, and the communication between Fearns and Thompson has been seen by Telegraph Sport.
“Around January 6, I had a one-on-one meeting with Matt Thompson, over coffee, and he told me he wanted to keep me at the club,” Fearns tells Telegraph Sport. “He said I’m an experienced player and it’s going to be a younger squad next season, and he wanted my experience. He said he wanted to keep me and would send a contract through next week. That’s how it ended.
“A week or two went by and I asked him if he had a contract for me. He said: ‘No, sorry, nothing at the moment.’ He continued, the following week after that I asked again. ‘Not at the moment, not yet, unfortunately,’ he repeated.
“At the end of January, I sent a message asking if the situation had changed. I had a family, I had to plan, I could be finishing my career, I had to get a job, I had a mortgage. He didn’t respond until I messaged again in March.
“I’m not a stupid person. I am an old pro. I knew what the crack was. After the third week of him saying ‘not yet’, I knew exactly what was going on.
“I think the man is a savage. You have to treat people the right way. I was pretty good about it in the messages. I understood if the club had a financial situation and that the situation around me might have changed. Maybe it was a bad thing for me to hear but I just needed to know if it was or not.
“In March, I told him my opinion and he replied saying thank you for the message and that the club was looking for a new coach. That’s all I got, really. I never got a straight answer.
“I felt something was wrong. If I had been a young player, I might have left at the 12th hour with no job, no family.”
Telegraph Sport has since caught up with Thompson and Newcastle owner Semore Kurdi, where the duo admitted failures in communication over Fearns’ lack of contract renewal, explaining the club was in transition, with sustainability and a long-term project – based on a core of youth talent – the goal, but the treatment his former full-back received should not have happened.
“We were saddened to hear last week that Carl will be retiring from playing professional rugby, but he can look back on a great career,” Newcastle told Telegraph Sport in a statement.
“With the benefit of hindsight, we acknowledge that the communication about his contractual situation could have been handled more clearly, but we thank Carl for his service and wish him well in his post-rugby life.”
Another example of poor treatment is the departure of coach Scott MacLeod from the club, Fearns explains. With the arrival of Codling, who specializes in the outfield, Thompson informed MacLeod over the phone at the end of last season that his services would not be required at the club for the following campaign. An hour later, not knowing that the former coach’s contract was not up for renewal, Codling asked MacLeod what he would bring to the coaching staff next season. Newcastle did not want to respond to Fearns’ account of MacLeod’s departure, although the club is understood to have apologized privately.
“I sympathize with Alex because, as I said, I know what’s going on around the club,” says Fearns. “But if he had done his due diligence before he arrived, he might have understood what the club was doing. But, Thommo, as he did to me, maybe he promised him things he wasn’t going to get? Maybe that happened? All he had to do was do some due diligence – it was clear the way the club was going, getting rid of the experienced starters in the group.
“If they want to cut their cloth accordingly, that’s well within their rights, but you have to treat the players as people – and treat them well.
“We’ve had one of our best players in years under Scott MacLeod and he’s a great coach. It made no sense to get rid of him.”
McGuigan and Davison’s departure was high profile; not just because both were members of the England squad or in the conversation about international call-ups, but because they arrived mid-season, with immediate effect, within three months of each other – and both players left for rivals the Premier Division. One source, who did not wish to be identified, told Telegraph Sport that Davison was left in tears on the sidelines of the training ground.
“The way George left the club… We came in on Monday and George stood up in a staff meeting and said: ‘Boys, I’m going to Gloucester.’ Some of the coaches weren’t even aware,” says Fearns. “When things like that happen, the whole squad – which relied, with less funds, on being a close unit – started asking why we were doing it, were people behaving like that?
“Trevor was going to Northampton, so no. I think he was told the deal was gone, then he came in one day and Thommo told him he was going to Saints tomorrow. Both George and Trevor seemed to be affected by the measures.
“Eventually, I felt for Dave and the whole team who were standing in front of us and giving us messages about being the ‘true north’ and being tight as a group, but on a weekly basis something else would happen that would happen. cut off their feet from them. I would leave if I were Dave.”
Newcastle did not wish to comment on the departure of McGuigan or Davison when approached by Telegraph Sport. However, it is understood that factors beyond the club’s control and external contract negotiations were part of the reason for the departure of the two players.
