Mike Ruddock has vowed to stake his reputation on the quality of players already at Sixways Stadium after revealing he does not expect a high turnover this summer.
Ruddock admits he has already held initial talks with many of those players out of contract at the end of the season and is shaping his squad with next season in mind.
But he does not expect a huge change in the make-up as he looks to build a squad to move up the Guinness Premiership table.
“I don’t think there will be too high a turn-over of players this summer. We had quite a high turn-over at the end of my first year, with about 18 players leaving,” said Ruddock.
“I don’t see that number going this time. I think there are a lot of good players here and I am putting my reputation on backing these players to come through.
“There will be some that leave and some that come in, but there will be lower numbers than before.
“I really do believe this group can turn things around. We’ve got some great young players coming through and they’ll only get better with more experience.
“The margins are small. At 17-14 down against Bath I felt we were very much capable of winning the game, but unfortunately a missed a tackle and suddenly we were chasing the game. One missed tackle makes the difference and those are the errors we have to get out of our game.
“I felt some of our systems were better in the last two games than they have been all season – both in attack and defence. As a coach you have to be the eternal optimist, my glass is half full – but I genuinely believe that and, if you talk to the players, they will say the same thing.
“I also think it is significant the number of players who want to stay here is high. There are players leaving other clubs at the moment, but you could argue that because of our position some clubs don’t want our players, but there are good players who could and have had the opportunity to go elsewhere, but they like the environment, the coaching and what we are trying to do, so want to stay.
“I think that is always a good sign of what we are about as a group that the retention of our key players is high.”