Addressing the media for the first time a couple of weeks ago, Saracens’ new head of culture and technical director Brendan Venter seemed genuinely perplexed as to why everyone was asking him questions while he was sat next to head coach Joe Shaw.

“You want an interview? You have got a brilliant person in Joe,” Venter said. “Joe is amazing. He’s very, very good at what he does. He’s technically sharp, treats his players really well and is a top-class head coach. Joe’s input is way more valuable than mine.”

So a few days later, Telegraph Sport returned to Saracens’ training base in Harpenden to speak to Shaw about his route to becoming the Gallagher Prem’s first English head coach of ethnic minority background in nearly two decades. Some players are born to become coaches because they are obsessed with the sport. Owen Farrell, for instance, is destined to become a head coach and will be cutting his teeth in Saracens’ Prem Rugby Cup campaign.

Shaw, by contrast, did not have such a glittering playing career. By his own admission, he never came close to fulfilling his potential as a versatile outside back who won England honours at junior representative level. But what he did have was a burning desire to help others, which first manifested itself in coaching a Northampton women’s team while he was still a player.

It remains his defining quality as a coach. “I care about people, I care about my players,” Shaw says. “Coaching rugby is coaching rugby, but the impact that you can have on people’s lives and the love and care that you can give them is something I take very seriously.

“Unfortunately in my life, I’ve lost a lot of people around my age who have committed suicide or died in a different way back home. That’s affected me quite a lot. If my personality means that someone can come and talk to me and share a bit more about what’s going on, which has happened a few times, then that’s just as important to me as winning a trophy.”

‘I remember my house being full of love and helping people’

To understand Shaw’s outlook, you need to go “back home” to Birmingham. He repeatedly references how “lucky” he was in his childhood. His father, Martin, was a schoolteacher while his mother, Barbara, ran her own cake business, ensuring he never wanted for anything. His parents also went out of their way to help others.

“My house was always full of people who needed help,” Shaw says. “In my sister’s year there were two West Indian boys who would stay at our house because they were struggling. So that’s what I can always remember: my house being full of love and helping people. I suppose that just rubs off on you.”

Yet there was another side to life within England’s second city. While he lived in a nice part of Edgbaston, Shaw was getting in trouble at school and was naturally drawn to temptation in Birmingham’s rougher parts, so his parents decided to send him to boarding school at Blue Coat and then Old Swinford Hospital. He ended up living a double life between weekdays at school and running with his old friends at the weekend.

“A majority of my friends from back home ended up in prison or are not with us anymore,” Shaw says. “Unfortunately, I’ve had friends who have been shot. I’ve had friends who have been stabbed. I’ve had friends who have gone to prison for a long time for drugs and firearms. I got very lucky having the parents I had. I got very lucky going to the schools I had. My dad always said if I hadn’t gone to boarding school, I would have ended up in prison. I probably would have.”

‘If I had my time again I would have tried to fulfil my potential’

At school, Shaw experienced the impact of coaching as he was taken under the wing of a pair of Welsh coaches: first Keith Marshall at Blue Coat and then Peter Jones at Old Swinford. “They had a real nurturing, loving effect on me,” Shaw says. “They got me. They understood me. They understood why I was naughty. They understood why I might have a bit of an edge. Even now to this day, they check in on me.”

In the days before Prem academies, Shaw was selected for England’s schoolboys side and he quickly accepted an offer to join Sale. From there he moved to Northampton and Newcastle, but by his own admission he was not the greatest professional, which is a lasting regret. “I didn’t make the most of myself at school from an academic point of view, and I managed to put that right as my career has gone on,” Shaw says. “I’ve got a degree and a master’s, but that was to prove to myself that I could do it. You can’t really get your playing career back. If I could have my time again, I would have put myself in better situations and tried to fulfil my potential.”

Long before he hung up his boots in 2009, Shaw had already thrown himself into coaching, even if it was accidental at first. “I was at Northampton late one night and there were a couple of girls kicking at the posts,” Shaw says. “I went out to help and ended up being their coach for a year or so.”

Shaw was hooked after that, coaching in the community and at National League side Westoe when he moved to Newcastle, where John Fletcher and the late Steve Black became big influences. After retirement, he chose to move to a completely new environment with Kowloon Rugby Club in Hong Kong before becoming their national team coach. When a vacancy arose in the Saracens academy in 2012 after Kevin Sorrell replaced Andy Farrell in the senior set-up, Shaw had been coaching for more than 10 years, even as a 32-year-old.

“I put in the hard yards. I’d coached a varied amount of people: from children to deaf people to disabled people to people who couldn’t speak a word of English, senior male and female players, being in the community, men that were older than me,” Shaw says. “I think being brave enough to go away and earn your stripes in a developmental country counted in my favour.”

‘There’s a lot more to life than winning a cup and enjoying it for a day’

Shaw, who is mixed race, gradually ascended the coaching ladder at Saracens, going from academy to senior backs coach and then head coach. Paul Hull at Bristol was the last English coach of an ethnic minority background to hold such a position in the top flight.

“A club like Saracens, where we have players from all over the world and a particularly diverse playing group, having coaches who reflect that diversity is really important,” Shaw says. “At the club we try to look at psychological security from whatever culture, race, background you’re from. It’s not just if you’ve got brown or black skin. It’s your surrounding areas.

“The fact that I am from just outside an inner city and I am mixed race means there are connections in a certain way for certain players that have leaned on it, and you get to talk because you’ve got that connection.

“There’s a lot more to life than winning a cup and enjoying it for a day. The imprint and the effect that you can have on young men of any nationality, colour and ethnicity for me is probably the most important thing in my life.”