Boss Mike Ruddock has stressed the importance of developing home grown talent at Worcester Warriors – and revealed how he will be attempting to recruit more England qualified players to Sixways.
Warriors recently signed up full back Luke Rooney, who has English qualification through his parents, from Toulon and Ruddock admits the rewards are now clear for signing England qualified stars.
He said: “The board have asked me to reduce the number of non English qualified players in the club, as there is a major financial reward available. I have to hone my recruitment to try and hit those targets.
“If 65 per cent of our squad every match-day are English qualified we reach our target, and that will lead to extra finance coming into the club.
“Before we have gone out and been able to bring in players, regardless of them being English qualified. I can still bring in a number of those players but the majority of the squad must be English qualified.
“New signing Neil Best is part of the quota, if you like, who will not be English qualified, but there are a lot of good options out there, and I am looking at those
“What it does show is the benefit of the work we have done with our Academy in bringing guys through, not only in rugby but from a financial perspective.
“By producing the likes of Matt Mullan, Miles Benjamin, Chris Pennell and those sort of guys, we get rewarded for it and that is important for us.”