JAMES Percival is hoping to live up to his nickname and make a bang now he is back in Worcester Warriors colours once again.

The former Harlequins second row has returned to Sixways six years after leaving the club’s academy to join Northampton Saints.

Percival, nicknamed the Social Hand Grenade due to his forthright views and not being afraid to express them whatever the situation, is looking to make an explosive impact for his new club.

The affable 27-year-old explained: “The nickname never ends — maybe I have a reputation for saying what I think. I never hold back and I’m blunt, there is no holds barred with me.

“But I am what I am and people either love me or hate me. I say what I think and I am a big believer in that, I appreciate when people do the same to me.

“Tell me what you think and I will never hold it against you — that is one of my mottos in life.”

Joking aside, Percival is deadly serious about what he wants to achieve with Warriors and speaks passionately of how much the club means to him.

He said: “I haven’t come back here just to sign for another club. When Dean Richards left Quins I knew it was time to move on and go somewhere new.

“Out of all the clubs I could have gone to it was always Worcester for me. This is my home club and I don’t believe in just going and playing, I have to have a reason to play for a team.

“The reasons for Worcester are that it is my home club, every time I have played against them in the past and in the Premiership it meant something to me and when they were in the Championship I was always watching and seeing how things were going.

“People in my everyday life support the club and so I was always surrounded by it. I have not come here just to take my pay packet home — I have got just as much feeling for the club as the supporters have.

“On Monday night, I was here watching the Cavaliers play and the supporters were talking to me and I told them ‘we will get it right, we are not going to fail’.

“It means everything to me. I am not the sort of person to just do enough. I am 100 per cent in or out. I want to be at this club for many years to come.”

He added: “Maybe, in years gone by, the squad would have been happy with the result we got against Harlequins.

“We lost to the top-of-the-table team and they were unbeaten, maybe Worcester would have been happy to get that losing bonus point.

“But that is not the mentality anymore.”