Worcester Warriors determined to secure top talent (From Worcester News)

Worcester Warriors determined to secure top talent

1:00pm Saturday 20th October 2012 in Sport By Tom Guest, @tomguestWN #WENsport

WORCESTER Warriors are already putting plans in place to ensure the crown jewels of their playing staff remain at Sixways.

The likes of England Saxons duo Matt Mullan and Matt Kvesic, as well as on-song former Red Rose fly-half Andy Goode, are out of contract this summer.

However, Warriors head coach Richard Hill revealed the club have already put the wheels in motion in a bid to sign their star players up on new deals.

Hill said: “We hope to be starting contract negotiations with some of our players very shortly.

“The first step is to get approval for a budget and that is what rugby operations director Corin Palmer is in the process of doing, along with myself and Nigel Redman.

“We are putting our proposals forward to the board and, hopefully at the November board meeting, a budget will be rubber-stamped.

“It is difficult to go ahead until we know exactly what we’ve got, but that process has started.

“I would hope over the next four to six weeks we would have approval of a budget so, by the end of November, we should be in a position to start to talk to our players. The likes of Matt Kvesic and Mullan and Andy will be high up on that list.”

Hill also hopes this summer’s behind-the-scenes improvements to the coaching team at Sixways will convince the out-of-contract players to commit their futures to the club.

He said: “The way you stop players from wanting to move to other clubs is by them feeling they are developing as a player within the environment. The feedback we are having from the agents of some of our players we are talking to at the moment is excellent.

“We have a great environment here with the new coaches and a lot of innovation in the new ideas and I believe the players are really enjoying that. They are being challenged and feel they are learning.

“We had Mathieu Rourre, our French coach, in this week and he delivered two superb sessions which is what excites the players.”

He added: “If you are in a staid environment where you are doing the same old, same old all the time, that’s when the players can get a bit fed up and look to move elsewhere.

“I don’t think our players could wish for any better coaching environment than what they have here in terms of what is delivered to them.

“We need to get good results in the Premiership over the next four to five weeks and hopefully that can convince some of our key players to stay.”