Alan Gaffney believes he can guide Northampton to a top-four finish in the Premiership despite the club’s run of 11 successive defeats in major competitions, after taking over until the end of the season.
Saints, who sacked Jim Mallinder after a decade as director of rugby last month, are 10th in the Premiership after seven consecutive league defeats, with Worcester only three points below them. They are now closer in terms of points to the bottom side, London Irish, than fourth-placed Gloucester but the Australian insisted only minor tweaks are required to improve form.
“I am working on the basis we are aiming for top four. We are not even contemplating anything else,” said Gaffney, who arrived in the UK on Sunday. “It may be a big ask, but if [the team] had won a couple of those games that have been reasonably close, all of a sudden you are challenging for top four. There’s not a lot in it. I am not even thinking about that [relegation]. It is not on the agenda as far as we are concerned.”
Gaffney officially started on Monday, two days after Northampton’s 50-21 defeat by Harlequins at Twickenham, and he revealed the interim coach, Alan Dickens, played a significant role in his appointment, sounding him out before the chief executive, Mark Darbon, made a more formal approach.
Having been working for Rugby Australia in a youth development role, The 71-year-old Gaffney described his remit as an “assisting role” to Dickens – who played under the Australian when he was the Saracens director of rugby between 2006-08 – and his fellow coaches Dorian West and Phil Dowson.
He also suggested he would be interested in the director of rugby role full-time but said his first priority is to instil belief in the squad before Gloucester’s visit on Saturday. “Obviously people are down and there’s a lack of confidence,” he said. “That’s the primary problem. It’s still a talented squad and it should be achieving better results than it has been. I did address the players and told them that’s not an ability issue, they need to go out and have a crack. I’m not going to reinvent the wheel. They are halfway through a season so I can’t be expected to change things overnight and I don’t intend to do that.”
He also gave his backing to the England and Northampton captain, Dylan Hartley, who was criticised after his performance at Twickenham on Saturday. “Dylan has been a figurehead here for a long, long time and he has got a lot of respect among the players. Northampton has been his club, always has been his club and his heart lies here. I don’t see any changes being made there and I only see a positive.”
