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Fin Smith’s path to international rugby has involved dealing with significant mental and physical challenges, including the onerous task of washing Steve Diamond’s car. While Northampton Saints is now Smith’s home, his journey to Test rugby started at Warwick School before entering the Worcester Warriors academy and a period of his fledgling professional rugby career that Diamond believes played a crucial role in his development.
Diamond was the Warriors director of rugby when the players and staff dealt with serious financial issues that would eventually see the club fold and a talented squad including Smith, Scotland wing Duhan van der Merwe and the England pair of Ted Hill and Ollie Lawrence, now key members of the Bath squad, depart.
So why was Smith armed with a bucket and sponge in the Warriors car park?
“Fin turned up late for training and so washing my car was his punishment – he did an alright job particularly the inside of the car,” explained Diamond who won the Premiership Rugby Cup with Smith at outside half in 2022.
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“Fin hasn’t forgotten what Warwick and Worcester have done for him even if the mainstream media have. The kid went through a lot with me when we had that dire position of going into insolvency. It was a period of adversity for a lot of people but we managed to engender a good environment and remained together.
“The team was voting on a regular basis whether to come into training because they weren’t being paid and would they play and all the rest of the bollocks. Throughout that period, Fin maintained a very disciplined and professional outlook and played really well.
“Fin is a level-headed kid who realises there have been various factors in his upbringing – parents, school and Worcester – that have helped get him to where he is at the moment. I arrived at Worcester and he wasn’t playing in the first team for various reasons – wasn’t old enough, good enough – but I saw him and he reminded me a lot of Charlie Hodgson who had been with me at Sale.
“Like Hodgson, Fin could pass off both hands, kick off both feet and was good a running a game. Fin had all of those qualities and could also tackle and all of those things are the requirements of an international No.10. He was outstanding against France.
“We won the Cup in 2022 and in our last game we beat Newcastle with players who moved to other clubs and Fin went to Northampton. He will always have a place in his memory of his time at Worcester.”
Smith, at 18 years and 292 days, became only the second 18-year-old to play for Warriors in the top flight when he made his debut as a replacement against Gloucester at Kingsholm on 27 February 2021. He has always been marked out as a real talent after he started playing the sport at four years old at Shipston-on-Stour RFC. Smith has Test rugby in his blood as his grandfather Tom Elliot won 14 caps as a Scotland prop between 1955 and 1958 and also toured South Africa with the British and Irish Lions in 1955.
Smith, who is also studying Economics and Mathematical Sciences at the Open University while playing professional rugby, then helped the Warriors lift the Premiership Rugby Cup six days after his 20th birthday. Worcester defeated London Irish on tries 3-1 after the teams could not be separated at the end of extra time with the scores tied 25-25. Worcester had been able to head into extra time thanks to Smith’s conversion of Kyle Hatherell’s 85th-minute try.
While Smith is preparing for another start in the England No.10 jersey against Scotland at the Allianz Stadium, Diamond is once more chasing a Premiership Rugby Cup triumph, although this time it is with Newcastle Falcons, who visit Sale this weekend needing one point to guarantee a quarter-final home fixture. “If you put the first team out in the Prem Cup it becomes a good competition and a bit like the Carabao Cup in football and while everyone says it’s the s**t cup but everyone wants to get in the final and Newcastle are in the final,” added Diamond.
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