Freed Oliver’s missed chance (From Worcester News)

Freed Oliver’s missed chance

8:50am Friday 30th March 2012 in Tom Guest By Tom Guest, @tomguestWN #WENsport

SADLY, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that the Tomahawk has been given the chop by Worcester Warriors.

Richard Hill signed prop Oliver Tomaszczyk two seasons ago amid a flurry of eye-catching quotes about his potential to make a huge impact at Aviva Premiership level. However, following just 15 starts over two years, it turned out the only huge thing about the former New-castle academy front-rower was his appetite.

Having previously studied modern languages at Oxford University, Tomaszczyk str-uggled to make the switch from student to professional athlete and Hill was left with little choice but to let him go.

“Unfortunately, in the last two years I haven’t seen the progress I would have liked to sign him on for another year,” the Sixways chief lamented. “I hope that Oliver does make it at some stage and finds a club were the penny drops and he realises he has to get himself into top physical shape.

“It’s disappointing because he’s a lovely lad, but I have to make these hard choices and I’ve brought two players in who I believe have good athletic ability in John Andress and Rob O’Donnell and they will, hopefully, offer us a lot more.”

Hill added: “We saw the potential with Oliver and people at the club put a lot of hard work into him for two years and there were glimpses that he was coming through. He had a very good 40 minutes against Rodrigo Roncero in the Stade Francais game, but then got injured and had to come off at half-time.

“I suppose a lot of it is about having the ability to deal with the rigours of playing at the top level. It’s a difficult sport these days – it’s not just about strength and power, but the fitness req-uired to go for 80 minutes.”