STEVE Diamond is excited about the potential of the club, following the club’s takeover by Simon Orange, and CorpAcq Ltd.

Yesterday, it was announced that the Manchester-based company has taken over control of the club from Brian Kennedy, and whilE it's the end of an era, its also the start of an exciting new one, Diamond said “It’s a great day for the club. It’s an end of era with Brian and Ian, but they’ve taken a different direction in their lives with Brian mainly based in America, and the enthusiasm of CorpAcq and Simon Orange is fantastic.

“I just think the trajectory that we’ve been on for the last four/five years is that it has got a really good foundation in place – we have a really good academy, some great players, we’ve strengthened the team this spring with top players, as well as some unknowns.

“What Simon brings is a vast knowledge of commercial side of businesses. His team will be putting in place a new board of directors which will be announced over next few weeks with a very influential chairman, and it is fantastic for rugby in North West.

“We’re always under pressure – look at dreadful scenario London Irish found themselves after summer of expectation with new coaches and players, we won’t go off the beaten track – we’ll keep doing what we do well, which is bring players through the academy and first thing we’ll be looking at doing is avoiding relegation – there’s a one in twelve chance it could happen, especially with Bristol getting promoted.

“With AJ MacGinty joining us, who was picked as one of the players of Pro 12, he is a total unknown to Aviva Premiership, let’s see where we go with it. We’ve got a big set of forwards, and a young set of backs, great coaching fantastic facilities – what more could you want?”

Speaking about recruitment, he said: “We’ll probably look at getting a winger, Josh Charnley doesn’t join us until the autumn, but unless the right person is out there, then there’s a couple of kids in academy doing well – we aren’t just going to go out there and spend with the chequebook like other clubs do.

“We’ll work off 33 men, and 15 kids and that’s what works for us. If we get into the later stages of Champions Cup over the next few years, then we’ll look to increase the squad size.”

He added: “My role isn’t going to change with the team – I’ll be setting out the way things go around here, with the mentality of the squad, and looking after the coaches. I’ll help out with the commercial side as I always do but CorpAcq will look at the commercial side of things, and strategies will be put in place and no doubt I’ll be in the forefront of those."