TALKS over players’ futures at Worcester Warriors hit a “big stalling” point while the club searched for a new director of rugby.

But experienced forward David Denton now expects to see many of his teammates sign new deals following Alan Solomons’ appointment as boss last Saturday.

Flanker Sam Lewis is the only player to have pledged his future to Warriors this season by putting pen to paper last month.

But the Worcester News understands the contracts of almost half of the squad are due to expire next summer.

And those players, including key trio Will Spencer, Jackson Willison and Ryan Mills, will be free to talk to interested clubs from next Monday.

Solomons has now taken over negotiations from Gary Gold and Denton believes Warriors’ decision to hand the 67-year-old the top job will help quicken the process.

“There was a big stalling over contracts for a lot of players because if they had signed up with Gary they had no idea whether someone would come in and potentially have a very different opinion of them," Denton said.

“It is a very tough one for players as they just want to know where they stand with the person in charge.

“The similarities in Solly’s and Gary’s coaching styles will help put their minds at ease and they now know they can actually speak to the guy who is going to be their coach for the next few years which will make decisions a lot easier.

“I think it is important the club starts getting things like this done because once you start moving into January and February that’s when other clubs start becoming very active.

“You don’t necessarily want people talking to too many clubs as we need to get our key players signed up here and look to fill the gaps that need filling as well.”

Since arriving at Sixways as a consultant in mid-October Solomons has helped to turn Warriors’ fortunes around according to Denton.

Worcester have moved off the bottom with wins over Northampton Saints, Leicester Tigers and basement side London Irish.

Denton said he was sad to see Gold depart to begin his new role as USA’s head coach but insisted Solomons had already received the backing of the players.

“It was a very tough decision for the people involved to make,” Denton said.

“But the players are pretty happy with how it has worked out and everyone has started to develop a good amount of trust for Solly and for me that’s a big first step.

“Once a player starts to trust a coach they can buy into his philosophies and then you can go on from strength to strength.

“There has been a number of excuses that we could have made over the last few weeks about instability and waiting to find out about various different things.

“But we haven’t used any of those and I think that’s important.

“There are some very strong characters in this squad so if we can get a lot of them to pen deals as soon as possible we can take this club a lot further than we are at the moment.”