Local boy Jonny set to join Warriors’ 100 club (From Worcester News)

Local boy Jonny set to join Warriors’ 100 club

11:03am Friday 7th September 2012 in Sport

OLD head on young shoulders Jonny Arr is poised to join some illustrious company at Warriors when he takes to the pitch against Leicester Tigers tomorrow.

The Worcester born and bred scrum-half was only born in November 1988, yet he will join the Sixways side’s ‘100 club’ when he steps onto the Welford Road pitch in this weekend’s Aviva Premiership clash.

Only 15 players so far in the professional era have reached three figures in the Gold ‘n’ Blue shirt and Arr is eager to become the 16th.

The former Royal Grammar School pupil said: “It has crept up on me a little bit, but this is my sixth year in the senior set up now — the time has flown by. I won’t be thinking about it too much on the day of the game, though, as we have Leicester at Welford Road and there will be more important things to concentrate on.

“Afterwards, I will be able to look back on it with pride. I was up in the East Stand at Sixways the other day where the names are up on the wall of all the players who have played 100 games for the club and there are some big names among them.

“It will be nice to join them and hopefully I’ve still got plenty more matches to come.

“Worcester is my hometown club and having been involved here for so long — right back to the mini/juniors all the way up to reaching the milestone of 100 games for the senior side — is a special thing for me.

“Hopefully, that will encourage more of the younger guys at the club to do the same as me as there are a lot of Worcester born and bred lads at the club these days.”

Meanwhile, Arr revealed he is often jostling for supremacy with no less than four other scrum-halves during training — Shaun Perry, Paul Hodgson, Ollie Frost — and head coach Richard Hill!

The Warriors head coach, a former England number nine who won 29 caps for his country, likes to stay involved on the practice pitch.

Arr added: “Having Hilly as head coach means there are five scrum-halves in the squad — he sometimes gets stuck in during training and he reckons he’s still got a few games left in him!

“Over the last three years, I have been working on becoming more of an attacking scrum-half as that is how the top players stand out.

“There is certainly a real battle for the number nine shirt at Sixways and if you are in the team you know there will always be a couple of players pecking at your shoulder.

“With Shaun Perry in the squad and Paul Hodgson joining the club, there is plenty of experience at scrum-half and Ollie Frost provides some young hunger to compete with too.”