When Sale step out for battle at Worcester tomorrow they will literally be unrecognisable from the rabble that ended the last campaign on the sourest of notes with a 68-17 thrashing at Gloucester.
Having being brought back last February to the club he graced first as a no-nonsense hooker and then as an innovative, passionate coach to try to stop a rot which has gathered pace ever since Sale’s 2006 title triumph, Diamond has overseen nothing short of a revolution since relinquishing his posts as Russia’s director of rugby and Northampton’s head of recruitment.
Not only have more than 25 players been brought in, including marquee captures such as Hendre Fourie, Andy Powell and Sam Tuitupou, with almost as many shipped out, Diamond has also reshaped his coaching and backroom staff with astute Kiwi Tony Hanks now on board as head coach.
What’s more, he has also overseen a staggering six-figure redevelopment which has brought Sale’s Carrington training HQ into the 21st century with state-of-the-art facilities which will be the envy of every other Premiership club.
So in every way possible, the club – who have seen former bosses Philippe Saint-Andre, Kingsley Jones and Mike Brewer come and go in the last three years – have been totally transformed from the rudderless ship which only narrowly avoided crashing onto the rocks of relegation over the past two seasons.
Yet in many ways those drastic changes has been the easy part. How Sale perform on the field will be the real acid test of Diamond’s revolution.
His immediate task hasn’t been made easier by the fact that the Edgeley Park club will start the season without 10 key players who will be absent for the next month at least on World Cup duty.
But the Sale supremo is adamant his Sharks will give as good as they get this season and will be a match for anyone.
“But I am not foolhardy enough to think that we will win every game this season but we will have a competitive edge,” declared Diamond.
“I have been lucky that our owners Brian Kennedy and Ian Blackhurst have given me pretty much total autonomy and we’ve managed to put a very competitive squad together.
“Only 10 of the players who left last year have got a new contract elsewhere so we’ve had to replace wholesale.
“And if we’d wanted to replace like for like then we probably wouldn’t have anybody at the World Cup bar Andrew Sheridan and Mark Cueto instead of the 10 who have gone to New Zealand.
“But we’ve gone for players of a proven high quality and that will be reflected when they start playing for us. In terms of comparing the club with where it was when I arrived, we’ve turned the oil tanker around completely.
“It’s not carrying full cargo yet because a number of people are away at the World Cup but we’ve trained all summer without those guys. So there is no excuse mentality.
“We’re really excited about going to Worcester and we will be delighted to be welcoming back 10 internationals in five or six weeks time. We are a work in progress and we are nowhere near where we want to be but there is a vibe about the place once again.”
The whirlwind changes implemented by Diamond in his seven months at the helm are only the prelude to the ambitious long-term vision he has mapped out for the club.
This centres not only on being back feating at the top table domestically, but also trading punches with Europe’s elite.
In the short-term however, he has mapped out two crucial goals for Sale to have achieved by May.
Though the bookies believe qualifying for the lucrative Heineken Cup – rugby’s equivalent of the Champions League – may be beyond the club’s reach this term after such radical surgery, the Sharks supremo is adamant that demanding goal is well within Sale’s capabilities
“As a group we have set ourselves a couple of short-term goals but the overall target this season is to make the Heineken Cup,” Diamond added.
“In fact there are two main targets. We want to make the Heineken Cup and we want to break even. Once we achieve those two goals then we can take the next step.
“We are working hard and though we aren’t looking beyond the first game, we have set ourselves a target for the first four to six games. They are challenging but we feel they are achievable.
“I have been compared recently to Mike Brewer but I find that quite funny.
“There is no autocrat here. There is a democracy in place but a democracy has to have leaders at the top.
“There’s a line to be drawn and it’s all about showing the players tough love and giving them them all the support and care they need but never leaving the base that we are all here for one reason only which is to win.
“I’m very lucky to have been give this opportunity and it won’t be wasted.”
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The thing that galls so much is the thought of Sale being 'Northern Losers.' We need the North West to be a sporting powerhouse to combat the overwhelming Southern bias in everything.