Stylish Sarries have model for success -Nick
FORMER Premiership prop Nick Auterac believes Saracens‘ success is down to the unique approach of the CEO – but says they are not the favourite team that he has played for.
Speaking on The Rugby Paper podcast, the 31-year-old also revealed his reasons for choosing early retirement in order to pursue a music career – and hopefully become a celebrity chef in the future.
“You can see why Saracens have been successful, the way they’ve looked after players, especially in the instance of giving boys opportunity post rugby,” Auterac said.
“A good friend of mine has retired and he told me they took all the boys who were injured out to an away trip to meet with all these business owners.
“They housed a networking session so all the business owners were happy watching rugby, all the rugby players were happy to drink and do some networking.
“You didn’t see that at other clubs. That was one of the reasons they were successful. They thought more outside the box. They didn’t think just rugby, how can we make the team better on the weekend, they thought how can we make everybody better.”
Auterac began his professional career with Saracens in 2011 and made 18 appearances for the club before departing for Bath in 2014.
The former England U20s prop says Saracens’ ‘out of the box’ ideology came from former CEO Ed Griffiths.
“Ed was CEO at the time of the initiative. He was a mental bloke. Incredible guy but absolutely clean off. I have a lot of time for Ed. He was a forward thinker.”
But Auturec says this was not the most enjoyable stint of his career because he has a special connection with Northampton.
“I was quite young at Saracens and didn’t understand the system of playing or the whole scope of rugby.
“If you were to say what was my fondest time I would probably say Northampton Saints. I have a real soft spot for Northampton. Good people, very good people. From the person who sits in the top of the stand once a week, through to the CEO, just good people. There’s a very community feel to the whole thing and it’s people who love rugby.”
Auturec argues this is not quite the case in London due to the influence of football, adding: “You’ve got Arsenal and so many other football clubs, London isn’t rugby-focused. You’re not going to get the same in London as in Northampton.
“You’ve got it in places like Bath, Exeter, Leicester they’ll have the same sort of backing. Saracens don’t have the same community feel.
“London is too big of a place to get behind. That’s why I think they’ve tried to get better in other aspects, to get better as a club.”
Auterac has since began a career in music and is loving the change of pace after rugby.
He said: “I said that in my 20s I want to play rugby, in my 30s I want to make music hopefully to a level where I can become a celebrity then in my 40s I can become a celebrity chef.
“I finished rugby when I was 31 and since then I have really thrown myself into the music world which I absolutely love, it’s a completely different landscape of life.
“From the people I meet to the things I do day-to-day, it’s entirely different which hasn’t got boring yet, so I’m really enjoying it. Hopefully I keep the enthusiasm there and hopefully do something quite cool in the musical world.
“I had a couple of injuries and I was like ‘what am I doing’. It got to the point just before Christmas time where I was like ‘enough’s enough’. I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. I wasn’t enjoying the gym and training too much.
“The boys at Edinburgh could tell I was enjoying it too much, there was a running joke for that year so I made the call after Christmas and I said, ‘that’s me done’.”
