Rugby Union: Newcastle's unsung power-broker

Simon Turnbull meets a back-rower delighted to be in the front line at last

In delivering the coach's considered verdict on Newcastle's successful entry into Premiership life, their opening-day win at Bath, Steve Bates pointed to one of the lesser-known Falcons.

"Richard Arnold epitomises Newcastle," Rob Andrew's sideline lieutenant declared. "Power, pace and total commitment is what Arnie is all about, as he showed at Bath. That's what the Falcons are all about too." It would hardly be accurate, though, to describe the power-packed Arnold as a typical Newcastle player. The dynamic flame-haired flanker was neither head-hunted by Andrew nor lured by Sir John Hall's fabled bounty. He simply responded to an advertisement in Rugby World.

"It said 'Come to Newcastle Gosforth and be part of the future'," Arnold mused after training on Friday. "Little did I know that the future would be playing professional rugby with some of the best players in the world."

The immediate future Arnold had in mind when he spotted Newcastle's appeal for new players was merely an escape from small-town life in his native New Zealand. "I was working in an abbatoir in my home town, Eltham," he continued. "The rugby was good but I thought 'I've got to get out of here.' I thought I might travel for a couple of years but then my brother showed me the advert in Rugby World."

That was six years, and a rugby revolution, ago. Unlike the other international recruits in the team lining up against Northampton at Kingston Park this afternoon, Arnold sampled life with Newcastle on the other side of the English club tracks before the gravy train arrived. "When I first came here I was working in a printing factory and getting home at seven at night," he recalled. "And we only trained two nights a week. Now it's training through the day from Monday to Friday."

The old days were not exactly good, either, when it came to Saturday afternoons. The Gosforth-hyphenated Newcastle did manage to graduate to First Division level back in 1993 but they were embarrassingly out of their depth, as a 46-3 submergence at Bath confirmed. They also suffered a 66-5 mauling at the claws of the Tigers before licking their wounds among the lower orders. As recently as October 1995, though, when Northampton last visited Kingston Park on league duty, they were second- class citizens even within the Second Division.

Three Richard Cramb penalties were all they could muster in reply to eight tries in a 52-9 defeat. "Yes, I played that day too," Arnold lamented. "It was another one of the hammerings we took. But that was before things started to take off."

Andrew, in fact, had been installed as director of launch operations by then. And his initial groundwork included signing Arnold on a professional contract. Wearying of fighting losing causes every week, he had been serving a suspension in readiness to join West Hartlepool. "I actually spent the summer training with West," Arnold recounted, "but Rob came in two weeks before I would have been free to play for them. I never really wanted to leave in the first place but the way things had been going it had become a road to nowhere at Newcastle. The club was going down big style."

Now that the Tyneside club has re-emerged, big-style, Arnold has the chance to show why he was once regarded as potential All Black material. A New Zealand Under-21 triallist, he earned, through his form at provincial level for Taranaki, a nomination for a senior All Black trial before he uprooted for Newcastle. "The competition was so fierce," he said, "particularly among the loose forwards. There were so many world-class players...the Whetton brothers, Wayne Shelford, Michael Jones. And Zinzan Brooke was one of the players who had been ahead of me in the Under-21 team. I didn't see much chance of getting a break."

At 28, Arnold considers it to be a fortunate break indeed to be among a quintet of summer Lions and three fellow sons of the South Seas: Va'aiga Tuigamala, Pat Lam and Ross Nesdale. "It is a dream come true," he said, "being a professional sportsman and playing with guys like Rob Andrew and Va'aiga Tuigamala. I always wanted to play against the best in England but I never imagined it would be quite like this."

Even before their winning Premiership baptism at Bath, Andrew's Falcons had swooped to make a new-season mark. They won 13-9 in Agen three weeks ago, when Arnold and his back-row colleagues, Lam and Dean Ryan, laid claim to the famous shining scalp of Abdelatif Benazzi. "That's the great thing about the position we're in now," Arnold said. "Every week you're testing yourself against the best." And the Premiership's back-row best have to test themselves too - against the power of Arnie.