Warriors Under-18s will set out on a path that has been trodden by Ted Hill and Ollie Lawrence in recent years when they launch their Premiership Under-18s Academy League campaign against Yorkshire Carnegie at Emerald Headingley on Saturday (kick-off 10.30am).
The Under-18s competition is an important part of the player development programme which has helped flanker Hill, who won his first England cap against Japan last month, and centre Lawrence, who trained with Eddie Jones’ squad in May, make rapid progress into senior rugby.
“It’s good for their development. They have to play six games in a short amount of time so there’s not a huge amount of time for them to recover,” said Gordon Ross, the Three Pears Warriors Academy Backs Transition Coach.
“We want them to try and get better and better every week. We want to challenge the players to be the best players in their age group in their positions.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity for them to play on a Premiership ground for our home games, they will go away and play at Newcastle – another Premiership ground – and this week we are at Headingley which is an international stadium.
“Hopefully we can be very, very competitive and the guys can learn and it will put them in good stead for moving into senior rugby.
“As a coaching group we challenge ourselves to make sure that when they players leave the Under-18s they are prepared for senior rugby and these games are an opportunity to do that.
“Earlier in the season the boys were looking at clips of Ollie Lawrence’s tries pre-season and his performance out at Stade Francais.
“So they do see that and they know that if they do play well opportunities will open up for them.”
Full-back Noah Heward has already played Premiership Rugby Shield rugby this season in the Cavaliers but the Solihull School player will miss Saturday’s match because of a knee injury.
“We are missing quite a few players through injury. They have played 15 to 18 games this term for their schools and it’s all added up,” said Ross.
“Most of the players have been involved here this term but there are three or four guys who I have never met before who will be involved on Saturday.
“But we have a good group of guys and hopefully that will be enough to get us through.”
Warriors Under-18s
15 Finn Morgan (Bromsgrove School)
14 Tom Matthews (RGS Worcester)
13 Paul Wells (Stourport HS)
12 Sebastien Atkinson (Bromsgrove School)
11 Tom O’Hanlon (Solihull School)
10 Finn Smith (Warwick School)
9 Harry Mitcham (Stourport HS)
1 Lewis Holsey (Solihull School)
2 Jon Lilly (Stourport HS)
3 Lewis Ballinger (Stourport HS)
4 Jack Goodwin (Hartpury College)
5 Jack Forsythe (Warwick School)
6 Finn Thomas (Oldbury Wells)
7 Will Higgins (Idsall)
8 Morgan Monks (Stourport High)
Replacements
16 Ben Turner (Bromsgrove School)
17 Monty Royston (Hartpury College)
18 Jaime Constantine (Hartpury College)
19 Owen McDougall (Solihull School)
20 Ewen Guy (Bromsgrove School)
21 TBC
22 Peter Olley (Bromsgrove School)
23 Lewis Maddox (Bromsgrove School)