My Life in Rugby: Paul Diggin – Northampton winger

The 2011 Heineken Cup final was devastating but we were dead on our feet after 60 minutes and couldn’t do anything to stop Leinster.
We had lost our talisman as well; Dylan Hartley is a wonderful captain and when he had to go off midway through the second half, we really suffered.
It was tough because it had been such a fantastic campaign and I think in time we began to take the positives out of it – Leinster had some team so we had to be proud of our efforts.
Earlier in the competition I managed to score four tries against Edinburgh and that’s still a club record, but I had to beg for one of them!
I was on a hat-trick and I was screaming for the ball and Joe Ansbro very kindly gave it to me – but I got told off for that though!
That Heineken Cup would have rounded off a period of great success for us which all came about through relegation and Jim Mallinder coming in.
To be honest, if we had not have been relegated in 2007, I don’t think we’d have made such progress. It gave Jim the chance to restructure everything.
And we built a winning culture – Chris Ashton was unbelievable in Division One, he’s still the fastest thing I’ve seen on two legs, and from there we laid the foundation for the EDF Trophy in 2008, the European Challenge Cup in 2009 and the LV= Cup in 2010, which was a real thriller against Gloucester.
One of the things Jim really wanted to do was make Franklin’s Gardens a fortress. When Ben Foden arrived in 2008 Jim asked him what he thought of playing there and he said it was always a lovely place to come, somewhere he really liked to play.
Jim wanted to change that, no-one liked going to play at Wasps or at Kingsholm or at Welford Road and we wanted the same at the Gardens.
I think we achieved that and it’s been a big factor in our success in the Premiership over the last few seasons. I really hope the lads can get over the final hurdle against Saracens at Twickenham and finally bring home the trophy.
My role is now with the academy and it’s come full circle because the start of the academies was how I got my break at Saints.
I remember a lot of lads were let go because we were told there would be just ten academy players and luckily I was one of them despite being a fair bit younger than the rest.
From there to the first-team was a step-up – I was playing in a seconds game and we hadn’t played for months, we had just been doing gym work.
I was playing pretty well but I was taken off with 20 minutes to go and I was furious to be honest. I didn’t know at the time that it was because I was going to get a shot in the first-team. Then boss Wayne Smith just pulled me aside and said: “We’ve got a few injuries, you’re in.”
It was against Sale in 2004, off the bench, and I had to wait about a year for my next match but I absolutely loved it.
Being a local lad I felt like a fan, winning a competition to play with your idols, people like Bruce Reihana, Paul Grayson and Steve Thompson. And I’ve loved every minute of my ten years at Northampton, my home town club.
Coaching has been on the agenda for a while – it’s time to look forward to that stage of my career and I’m passionate about it.