Newcastle, already facing an uphill battle to bridge the gap to the other Prem sides, had to recruit late and signed players from New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, Argentina and Japan, as well as Britain.
Developing on-pitch relationships in a short space of time has proven to be difficult so far with the Red Bulls having fielded debutants in each of their first three league games.
South African full-back Stefan Coetzee is set to be the latest to wear the colours for the first time on Friday when they welcome Northampton Saints to Kingston Park.
Saints included 11 academy players in their starting line-up against Leicester Tigers on Saturday, including all four of their British and Irish Lions – Tommy Freeman, Fin Smith, Alex Mitchell and Henry Pollock.
It is that pathway and production line which offers an example of the longer term plan that Newcastle want to implement.
“It’s well documented here that Red Bull want to build from an academy,” Dickens added.
“It’s teams like Northampton who really put an emphasis on that and have performed well within the academy leagues. That is a good model to have.
“I was at Northampton when they had that change of mindset about how they wanted to play. It takes a period of time and there are peaks and troughs.
“We’re playing catch-up here and we need to close that gap as quickly as possible.”
