WORCESTER Warriors have promoted Chim Gale to be the club's new academy manager.

Gale will take over from Mark Hewitt, who will become his assistant manager and take a step back from the day-to-day running of the academy to support player recruitment before retiring at the end of the season.

Hewitt will have a specific focus on young talent identification as Warriors look to continue their work with the brightest talent in the West Midlands.

Gale joined Warriors as outreach academy coach in January 2013 before becoming assistant academy manager in May 2014.

Warriors' academy have built up since the arrival of high performance director Nick Johnston in 2013.

The club have launched junior academy centres across the West Midlands in the last three seasons and 17 players were called up to represent England from under 16s to under 20s levels in the 2015-16 campaign.

Gale will oversee the entire academy and work alongside the best up-and-coming players across the region to help produce the next generation of first-team stars.

He said: "I am delighted to be taking over as academy manager and look forward to continuing the hard work all the staff have put in over the last few years.

"Our academy is in a better place than it has ever been and is set up to flourish.

"We are already working with the most talented players across the West Midlands and will be continuing our focus on producing outstanding players who will eventually play for our first team.”

Educated at Blundell's School, Devon, Gale represented Bath academy between the ages of 18 and 20.

After studying sports conditioning coaching at Hartpury College from 2004 until 2007, the former full-back and winger went on to work as rugby coach at Dean Close School, Cheltenham.

Johnston said: "Chim has worked closely with Mark in recent years and has the knowledge base required to ensure our academy offering continues to move forward.

"Mark will continue to play a key role in our academy set-up as we look to produce young players who have the physical, technical and mental ability to perform at the highest level.”

Mike Hill is the club's new academy transition coach.

Hill had previously worked as a coach in the club's development player pathway programme centres.