The perfect match

The stock, as well as the pay packets, of Steve Diamond and Mike Ford has risen dramatically following a sparkling end to the season that propelled the Men in Black into the Heineken Cup for the first time in four years with seven wins in their last eight matches.

Diamond was shortlisted for the Director of Rugby of the Year award despite only taking sole charge at Christmas, while Ford spent the summer as part of the British & Irish Lion's lavish coaching team and was one of the few members of the party to return from a chastening experience in New Zealand with his reputation enhanced.

Of course, the two rugby alchemists had begun to make their mark long before they arrived at Saracens - Diamond at Sale and Ford as the mastermind behind Ireland's defence - so there was something awry when they formed the most experienced members of a coaching triumvirate headed by Rod Kafer last summer.

The Manchester-reared duo found themselves at opposite ends of the coaching spectrum to Kafer, the Australian who had cut his teeth as a coach in the attack-obsessed Super 12 competition but whose methods were not transferable to the forward-orientated-based game in the northern hemisphere.

Diamond and Ford had the blueprint but it was Kafer who was calling the shots.

Things eventually came to a head just before Christmas but the cracks had already started to appear on the opening day of the season against London Wasps.

Diamond and Ford spent the week prior to the curtain-raiser at Twickenham attempting to dissuade Kafer from playing his wide, expansive game against the Zurich Premiership champions, advocating a more simplistic approach built around the strength of their forward pack and set-piece.

After much discussion Kafer eventually came round to the idea and the upshot was an opening day victory.

"We had to ring him," recalled Ford, "and we rang him on the motorway. Fair play to him, he took it on board that day and we came up trumps. But the week after he went wide again."

Kafer would have felt victory over newly-promoted Worcester vindicated his approach but Sarries were far from convincing and the wheels were beginning to wobble when they were beaten by Leeds Tykes and London Irish in successive weeks.

They finally came off in humiliating fashion against Harlequins in November and the inevitable change at the top came three weeks later.

"It was frustrating but I was partly to blame," reflected Diamond on a first half of the season that yielded just six wins. "When I left Sale to come here I should have probably said that I should have led the way really because of Rod's inexperience but I didn't realise how inexperienced he was.

"He was a very good player but he had never done any real coaching in this competition. I came as a subordinate to him, which was the wrong way. It took me three or four months to realise that. The frustration just gets worse unless you nip it in the bud. We tried to help him for a long time but you can lead the horse to water but you can't make it sup."

Added Ford: "It was easier for me as I was going back to work with Ireland. It was Dimes' main job and, to be fair to him, he was really, really loyal.

"We kept going in and saying have you thought about this idea and that idea' and it was touch and go whether Steve had to go in and say something. But fortunately the club saw what to do before it got to that stage. There was nothing more we could have done to help him.

"I said to Rod before he left would he have done anything differently? Would he still have employed me had he known I would be missing with Ireland for half of the season? Because I wouldn't. I wouldn't want Steve to go off for parts of the season, even if he was the best in the world. You need that continuity."

Continuity was the key to Diamond and Ford's elevation following Kafer's departure, and the transition proved seamless. Sarries have not looked back since and the only regret chief executive Mark Sinderberry probably has is that he didn't make the change sooner.

There is no magic formula to their partnership. "We both want to coach the same way," explained Ford. "We are not very complicated coaches and that's the common goal that has got us together."

There is a little bit of good cop, bad cop in their approach, with Ford more likely to be seen on the training ground clutching a clip-board while Diamond wields the big stick.

Their respective backgrounds Diamond's as an abrasive hooker with Sale and Ford's as a scrum-half of some repute with Wigan, Castleford and Great Britain combines to make a cocktail that bears more than a striking resemblance to the Gatland-Edwards axis that has underpinned Wasps' recent dominance.

"The contrast is brilliant but the common factor between us is our understanding of the game and we'll never get away from that," continued Ford.

"We just add our own little fortes to that and if I'm going too far off the track then he pulls me back and vice-versa. It's a great partnership at the moment."

The partnership has even survived the litmus test of living together Ford, along with Nigel Ashley-Jones, the conditioning guru, has been living at Diamond's house in London Colney for the last six months.

"It works well as we are able to live on each others toes and not fall out," said Diamond. "We are also able to answer people's questions about the team as we know what each other wants to do. It works very well.

"But we won't be successful unless all the components come together. If one of us starts to get a bit too big for our boots then the other one knocks them down."

Diamond and Ford's relationship stretches back nearly a decade when the pair first worked together at Duckingfield, an amateur rugby side in a suburb of Oldham.

"It was skills and a bit of fitness to start with but then they asked me to be coach and I didn't know anything about line-outs," recalled Ford on his first job after returning from Australia. "Steve was playing at the time and came down from Sale and helped me out with the forwards."

Diamond takes up the story: "Mike then got the job working for Ireland and we met each other again when Sale played against Leinster about three years ago.

"We discussed the opportunity of him initially coming to work with Sale but it didn't work out that way because I came down here. He wanted to further his career and not be pigeon holed as a defensive coach and when it didn't work out with Rod it was ideal that Mike took over the coaching."

Although it was Kafer who sought the services of Ford, it was Diamond's presence at Vicarage Road that proved a major carrot for Ford and he jumped at the chance of a reunion.

"He could sell snow to the Eskimos," said Ford of his partner's powers of persuasion. "It was a massive factor that he was here. There is no pretence with Dimes, he tells you how it is and I love it that way. He's a decent guy as well, which makes it easy to work together. It's enjoyable to come to work.

"We'll see if that's the case when we've lost three on the run but I'm sure we won't change we know what we are both about and we know how to win games."

They certainly do. Diamond has imbued the squad with a never-say-die attitude that was reflected in the number of victories, particularly away from home, that Sarries managed to eke out in the second half of the season.

His attention to detail at the set-piece has also established the line-out and the scrum as arguably the most formidable in the Premiership. Combine that with Ford's renowned defensive and attacking nous and you have a combination that has not yielded any trophies yet but looks to have put them on the right track.

Sarries may not have won any extra points for style last season - something that is unlikely to have bothered Diamond one bit - but Ford has spent the summer attempting to weave an attacking game-plan on to the framework they created last season in a bid to take the team on to the next level.

Their stature and connections in both codes of the game also provides a useful tool in the transfer market where Sarries have excelled in the last two seasons.

Money is no longer the determining factor in signing for Saracens (some new and existing players have taken pay drops) and Diamond's prudence has created sufficient room in the salary cap to enable him to build a squad of bristling with quality and quantity.

His penchant for largely UK-based based players has created a culture that Diamond feels is conducive for building team spirit and the coaches can often be found at the centre of the training ground banter.

Apart from constantly ribbing each other about their height (Diamond is three inches taller), their age (Ford is three months older) and their hair (no comment), have the duo ever had a cross word, though?

"I think we had one last year during a game when I accused Fordy of going back to Rod Kafer's old ways and then he pointed out that we had lost three line-outs on the trot," recalled Diamond with a chuckle.

"Cross words are good. I think they contribute to a healthy environment and if you've got something to say it's better to get it off your chest. I've worked in an environment once where you kept things bottled up inside and I left. As soon as you get that bully mentality when you are frightened to say something to someone who won't change then you are knackered."

The recent internal coaching structure - Diamond was elevated to Director of Rugby while Ford was named Head Coach - provides the club with some much-needed stability and their decision to sign new improved contracts in the summer confirms they are in it for the long haul.

"We think we've got the model of how to build a club not just a team," said Diamond. "Building a team is easy because you can just do what Chelsea have done and we could certainly do that with our owners. But we don't need to do it that way. We want to build a club environment and a legacy."

The will be music to the ears of the long-suffering fans, owner Nigel Wray and Sinderberry.

The chief executive has spent the last three years searching for the right coaching team and appears to have struck gold.

Should Sarries' rise and England's decline continue at the same rate then his biggest problem could be hanging on to the duo.