Warriors deny Richards role (From Worcester News)

Warriors deny Richards role

9:30am Tuesday 7th February 2012 in News By Tom Guest, @tomguestWN #WENsport

DEAN Richards will not be joining Worcester Warriors as director of rugby, Sixways managing director Charlie Little has confirmed.

The former Harlequins chief, who is approaching the end of a three-year ban for his role in the Bloodgate scandal, has regularly been linked to a role at Sixways.

Ex-England number eight Richards was used by Warriors in a consultancy capacity when the club conducted a thorough review into the failings that led to relegation from the Premiership in 2010, which increased speculation he was being lined up for a role above head coach Richard Hill in the Sixways hierarchy. Little said: “It is fair to say that we had a discussion with Dean, but that emanated from the early conversations we had during the RFU-approved external review of our relegation year.

“When he came in as a consultant the idea of him becoming director of rugby here was, and still is, at some stage a possibility. We have a good relationship with him.

“At the moment we have discussed it at board level and I am authorised to say Dean is not coming in as director of rugby. He would be one of a number of people on our list if things changed. “Some people may question it, but I have no issue with the past as he has done his time and don’t see why he can’t come back into rugby.”

Little added: “However, the big issue is that what Richard and Phil Davies are currently doing is exactly what the board has asked of them. They only had one chance to get us up out of the Championship, which they did, and they are now successfully continuing to instil their playing style.

“Hopefully, we are looking up the table rather than down it now and we are getting to a situation where we can recruit players for next season earlier, which is easier when you have security in the division, although we are not there yet.”

However, Little did reveal that Warriors are considering bringing in an extra coach to take some of the day-to-day workload off Hill.

He explained: “We are happy with the structure of our coaching team at the moment and the skill-set of Richard, Phil Davies and Phil Larder. The academy continues to deliver under Andrew Stanley and Gary Meechan.

“What we may look at is bringing in an additional coach. If we could bring in someone else who would complement the current team then it would free up more time for Richard.

“There are areas where we could bring in a dedicated coach, as we have done with Phil Larder. If that does happen, it would be next season now as most people out there are under contract.”