By Connect
August 26 2002

David Percy, known to messageboarders as Connect has kindly transcribed his interview with Wayne Smith for use here on COYSDC. Smudger talks about the new season, new players and the chances of some silverware. Thanks again David we're chuffed to bits to receive an article of this quality. DP. “Wayne, this is your first full season at Northampton, you must be looking forward to it?”

WS. ”Yeah, I’m really excited, I had a taste of it last year, having half a season here, and I was impressed in what I saw, and the attitudes, but it’s good to start off with a summer campaign, and establish your fundamentals early on, so hopefully it will be a positive season for us”.

DP. ”You’ve been away for pre-season training, how are the squad shaping up”?

WS. “Good, because of the length of the season and the shortness of the recovery period, and there are quite a few injuries the guys are recovering from, it’s a wee bit frustrating, but on the flip side of that, that enables you to bring on academy players, young guys that are given opportunities, in France, for example, against top teams, we’d have six academy players at any time on the field, and they all fronted and showed that, with work, they could be good players for the Saints”.

DP. “On the transfer front, it’s ten out and five in, including two high profile Southern Hemisphere players”.

WS. “Yeh, I established quite a few different criteria, so that we could recruit strategically, one of the areas that I was concerned about was our aerial skills, and our ability to win ball in the air, be it at a line-out, or kick-off time, so we’ve managed to fix that up, I hope with guys like Simon Hepher, Mark Connors, and Steve Williams, who are all specialists in that area, one of the other categories was versatility, the ability to play positions other than just one, and to be flexible on the field, if you loose a player to the sin-bin, or something like that, you need players who are able to fill in, and are able to cover, and take someone else’s role, So that was one of the criteria too, Bruce Reihana fitted that perfectly in the backs, he can play Fly-Half, Wing or Full Back, and something else we were after was a bit more pace out wide, and a bit of ball handling ability in the outside backs, so we brought in people like Oriol Rippol, and Bruce Reihana, who I have mentioned, and John Slightholme is back, so that strengthens us right over the park.”

DP. “Consistency was a problem for the Saints last season”.

WS. ”You are always looking for consistency, I think that going from the end of November to the end of the season, I think we had as many wins as Leicester, certainly up there somewhere, so we achieved some consistency, we went up and down at the end of the season, as we had been at the start, we’re getting there, but again, we’ve got to prove that this year, we’ve got to show that we can start with a passion, and the will to win that we finished last season with”.

DP. “What’s the thinking behind joint Captaincy”?

WS. “Logistically, it’s a long season, with a lot of games, we are in three different competitions’ and it’s a lot of work for one man to be Captain all the time, so I think it lessens the load on one person for a start, secondly, Budge is an integral part of the Scottish test team, so we loose him for the Autumn internationals, and we will loose him for the World Cup the year after, it just made sense to me to be developing another Captain, and it won’t stop there either, because I am adamant that you’ve got to have a team full of leaders to perform consistently well, you’ve got to have people who don’t loaf on the field, people who will be tough on their peers, and make sure that standards are upheld, there will be other people given opportunities during the year, I think , to Captain the team, and I am just trying to develop a wider range of leaders throughout the squad.”

DP “Finally, what about silverware this season”?

WS. “ I never answer those questions, because they are just hypothetical, and we don’t control any of that, we’re just working really hard to get the basics right, becoming a bit tougher mentally, and knowing where we are going, and what we have to do to get there, and doing it really well”.

DP. “Wayne, thank you very much.”