Worcester Warriors
Gain Promotion or stay another year.
By Lindsay Clayton
December 11 2014
This interesting conundrum occurred to me the other day when a friend espoused the opinion that it would be better for The Warriors to stay another season in the Championship.
This would ensure that we are ready to face the Premiership with a stronger, deeper squad than we managed in our last two visits to top flight rugby.
Is staying where we are what we really want? What is it that we hope will come out of this season?
Dean Ryan and his staff have begun the lengthy task of reorganising the Warriors from the bottom up and the top down at the same time. This is no easy job, our relegation being an indicator of that. But there are signs that the work in the Academy set up is going very well. Successes at U16 and U18 levels and others, along with being unbeaten in the Avivia A League group phase, all bodes well for the future.
But where does that future lie next season? The argument to stay where we are is that we have a young inexperienced squad that need more time to develop into a force that can withstand the pressures that the Premiership will exert. Another year will see more skilled and patient players able to bide their time in a crisis and apply the pressure at the right moment. After all, we a must not emulate London Welsh and their sorry state languishing at the bottom of the Premiership with one solitary point after 9 games.
On the other side of the coin there are those who say we cannot afford to stay out of the Premiership for more than a season, both financially and from a credibility point of view. Dean Ryan has said that the strategies to get us promoted and the rebuilding of the club require very different approaches. Although the rebuild plan does include an improvement in the playing staff, to a standard that is needed for Premiership Rugby, specifically gaining promotion is a consequence of the plan not a direct aim.
It doesn’t take an accountant to come to the conclusion that being in the Championship is losing the Club money. The half empty stadium at home games is a clear indicator of that issue. Some would have free tickets issued to schools and colleges to fill the empty seats but there is a financial overhead to that which is unpalatable to the bean counters.
Some former season ticket holders are not willing to pay to watch rugby at a lower level than the Premiership and others say the tickets are too expensive for Championship rugby, but the bottom line is they are not happy to watch the Warriors.
I would contend that we do need to get back into the Premiership to maintain the momentum we are building so far this season. Staying in the championship could lead to similar stagnation that Leeds and Bristol have suffered. At this moment in time we are unbeaten in all competitions, bar the first game against Bristol, and if we win any of the 3 bits silverware we are in contention for this season, then the most important thing is that we continue to move forward and that means upwards.
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Discussion started by Comeonyouwarriors.co.uk (IP Logged), 11/12/2014 13:23
11/12/2014 13:23
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014:12:21:11:17:40 by Powick Eastander.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014:12:21:11:17:40 by Powick Eastander.
Gain promotion is our only goal for this season anything else and the season should be deemed a failure.
cannot decide. would rather continue to build than have another struggle. I have endured enough seasons at the bottom
I think another season in the championship would help us to build the team to carry us on into the Premiership and stay there without the basement struggle as we've seen in previous years.
Are the players going to learn more running in straight forward victories against part time sides or by playing good competitive teams?
For me it is the second so we must go up, if we don't then players like Pennell, Williams etc. will be off as soon as they can be for the sake of their careers. While the championship is structured and funded like it is there is nothing to gain from an extended spell in the league.
For me it is the second so we must go up, if we don't then players like Pennell, Williams etc. will be off as soon as they can be for the sake of their careers. While the championship is structured and funded like it is there is nothing to gain from an extended spell in the league.
Firstly I am sure we will be doing our utmost to go up this season. The choices need to be looked at over 2 seasons-
- Go up and stay up
- Go up and come down
- Stay down and go up
Difficult to chose between 2 and 3
- Go up and stay up
- Go up and come down
- Stay down and go up
Difficult to chose between 2 and 3
I would rather us win promotion.
But believe if that was not possible, I believe another year in the Championship could be in the best interest of the club in the long term.
I do not want Warriors to go up and become the bottom feeder Premiership club as we have been up to now.
I really believe in what Dean Ryan is doing and our goal must be in our first year of the Premiership to become a middle league table team, like Exeter achieved.
There would be worse things that a 2nd year in Championship.
But believe if that was not possible, I believe another year in the Championship could be in the best interest of the club in the long term.
I do not want Warriors to go up and become the bottom feeder Premiership club as we have been up to now.
I really believe in what Dean Ryan is doing and our goal must be in our first year of the Premiership to become a middle league table team, like Exeter achieved.
There would be worse things that a 2nd year in Championship.
As a fan I would love us to go up at the end of this season, though looking at the Premiership standard right now I am not sure we have enough about us to stay up and would need to do a lot of recruitment.
If we miss promotion and succeeded at our second attempt then it would not be the end of the world for me, assuming that we go up strong enough to stay up.
As for this season being a failure if we are not promoted, I do not agree with this. If we won the B&I and or A League and brought on a crop of 20 decent youngsters then that would be a success.
If we end the season with no improvement to our young players, no promotion, no B&I and no A league then yes that would be a failure.
I would be more disappointed if we get promotion but lose 10 youngsters to other teams in the prem as we had to draft in "premiership players" in an attempt to stay up. That would be a complete failure!!
If we miss promotion and succeeded at our second attempt then it would not be the end of the world for me, assuming that we go up strong enough to stay up.
As for this season being a failure if we are not promoted, I do not agree with this. If we won the B&I and or A League and brought on a crop of 20 decent youngsters then that would be a success.
If we end the season with no improvement to our young players, no promotion, no B&I and no A league then yes that would be a failure.
I would be more disappointed if we get promotion but lose 10 youngsters to other teams in the prem as we had to draft in "premiership players" in an attempt to stay up. That would be a complete failure!!
If we can put together a team that can compete in the premiership then go up. If the players are not quite ready but progress is being made then stay in the championship.
I am happy in either league. The worst thing that can happen is we go up, we are not ready, the pressure gets to the players, we get relegated again and we lose our best young players.
JP
# TOGETHER
" SEMPER BELLATOR "
I am happy in either league. The worst thing that can happen is we go up, we are not ready, the pressure gets to the players, we get relegated again and we lose our best young players.
JP
" SEMPER BELLATOR "
Risks both ways - as set out above.
But I recall that Dean Ryan, at the recent gathering, said something along the lines that his target was always to be a mid-table Premiership side within 5 years - it was not necessarily to gain promotion this year. I presume therefore that this possibility, not being promoted, has been built into the financial projections and provided for accordingly. In addition, I imagine that players' contracts will have been built to cover that eventuality.
Yes, I would certainly like to be back in the Premiership next season - but not a the price of being relegation fodder, again.
My medium term dream is to be able to go to Sixways in the knowledge that once we are back in the Premiership a home win is more likely than not.
But I recall that Dean Ryan, at the recent gathering, said something along the lines that his target was always to be a mid-table Premiership side within 5 years - it was not necessarily to gain promotion this year. I presume therefore that this possibility, not being promoted, has been built into the financial projections and provided for accordingly. In addition, I imagine that players' contracts will have been built to cover that eventuality.
Yes, I would certainly like to be back in the Premiership next season - but not a the price of being relegation fodder, again.
My medium term dream is to be able to go to Sixways in the knowledge that once we are back in the Premiership a home win is more likely than not.
I personally think we will be good enough to compete in the premiership. We won't lose any decent players with the correct DoR and contracts.
Very interesting question.
The thing is, you cannot guarantee we will be ready after 2 seasons in the Championship. If there was a guarantee that, after 2 seasons in the Championship we would see 10 seasons of success in the premiership then of course, everybody would say we'd take the hit. However, ultimately, the only way we will know if we are ready for the prem is by being there and really the only way these players will properly improve and develop is by playing in high intensity premiership and european games and that leads me onto my first major issue with staying in the Championship another season...
Many contributors to this forum say how great and exciting the B&I is as we see a lot of player development. Whereas this may be the case for the really young members of the squad, it is doing absolutely jack s**t for the slightly older players who are way above the standard presented to them. It is merely keeping them fit. My issue with staying down is that we will become accustomed to Championship and B&I standard and the step up when we do gain promotion will be a huge shock, especially to the youngsters. They are not getting properly tested against the best and until they are we will not fully know how good they are as players. Now I certainly think there is an argument for throwing young players in at the deep end far too early and the exposure damaging their progression, but there is also an argument for the opposite and not giving them any exposure to top quality opposition. Our young players currently do not get to play against the best and the longer it continues the more of a hindrance on their overall progression it will become. They simply do not know what intensity levels you need to be playing at when you play Northampton/Leicester/Saracens.
My second issue with staying down is the fact that the league is ran awfully. The B&I Cup is a reserve league and there are huge gaps between home league games. Also, the play-offs are a farce.
My third issue is support for the club. Crowds are massively down. We are now pretty much down to our pre-premeirship crowds of 2003 (I'm taking actual attendances, not figures fed to us by the club). Considering what our attendances were as soon ago as 2010 that is a catastrophic failure on an unprecedented scale. These attendances reflect what punters think of the club; the team; the match day experience and the opposition/league structure. The general mood towards the club around people in Worcester has been pretty bad for a good few years now. People are p1ssed off, feel it is not value for money to go to Sixways and IMO think the club are not really @rsed about the fans and I certainly think they have had a very valid point until recently where we are seeing some signs of improvement. However, the damage done by the Palmer/Hill/Little era will take A LOT of time to repair and believe a further season in the Championship will only further the negativity surrounding the club.
Fourthly financial issues. This one is obvious. We need to be in the prem to make money.
Fifthly I want to be playing the best. I don't want to be playing Munster A or Moseley. I want to be watching us vs Gloucester, Leicester and Northampton.
Last, some generic miscellaneous stuff that doesn't really have a category. First of all the success of other sporting clubs in the City. The Basketball, Cricket and Football clubs are all doing brilliantly at the moment. As soon as WCFC return to the City I am sure their crowds will rise fairly substantially. They all enjoy positive press and are all very much on the up. We are completely the opposite. Also, if we don't get promoted Wasps presence in the West Midlands will only continue to grow and strengthen. The acadamy regions are being redrawn in 2016 and if we aren't in the Prem we will not have a leg to stand on as to what areas we want. Also, next year is a World Cup year, which will mean this seasons late finish won't effect us as badly as it would any other year.
IMO we need to go up this season. If we didn't it wouldn't be as simple as ''oh well we will go up next season''. I also trust Dean Ryan to keep us up should we gain promotion.
The thing is, you cannot guarantee we will be ready after 2 seasons in the Championship. If there was a guarantee that, after 2 seasons in the Championship we would see 10 seasons of success in the premiership then of course, everybody would say we'd take the hit. However, ultimately, the only way we will know if we are ready for the prem is by being there and really the only way these players will properly improve and develop is by playing in high intensity premiership and european games and that leads me onto my first major issue with staying in the Championship another season...
Many contributors to this forum say how great and exciting the B&I is as we see a lot of player development. Whereas this may be the case for the really young members of the squad, it is doing absolutely jack s**t for the slightly older players who are way above the standard presented to them. It is merely keeping them fit. My issue with staying down is that we will become accustomed to Championship and B&I standard and the step up when we do gain promotion will be a huge shock, especially to the youngsters. They are not getting properly tested against the best and until they are we will not fully know how good they are as players. Now I certainly think there is an argument for throwing young players in at the deep end far too early and the exposure damaging their progression, but there is also an argument for the opposite and not giving them any exposure to top quality opposition. Our young players currently do not get to play against the best and the longer it continues the more of a hindrance on their overall progression it will become. They simply do not know what intensity levels you need to be playing at when you play Northampton/Leicester/Saracens.
My second issue with staying down is the fact that the league is ran awfully. The B&I Cup is a reserve league and there are huge gaps between home league games. Also, the play-offs are a farce.
My third issue is support for the club. Crowds are massively down. We are now pretty much down to our pre-premeirship crowds of 2003 (I'm taking actual attendances, not figures fed to us by the club). Considering what our attendances were as soon ago as 2010 that is a catastrophic failure on an unprecedented scale. These attendances reflect what punters think of the club; the team; the match day experience and the opposition/league structure. The general mood towards the club around people in Worcester has been pretty bad for a good few years now. People are p1ssed off, feel it is not value for money to go to Sixways and IMO think the club are not really @rsed about the fans and I certainly think they have had a very valid point until recently where we are seeing some signs of improvement. However, the damage done by the Palmer/Hill/Little era will take A LOT of time to repair and believe a further season in the Championship will only further the negativity surrounding the club.
Fourthly financial issues. This one is obvious. We need to be in the prem to make money.
Fifthly I want to be playing the best. I don't want to be playing Munster A or Moseley. I want to be watching us vs Gloucester, Leicester and Northampton.
Last, some generic miscellaneous stuff that doesn't really have a category. First of all the success of other sporting clubs in the City. The Basketball, Cricket and Football clubs are all doing brilliantly at the moment. As soon as WCFC return to the City I am sure their crowds will rise fairly substantially. They all enjoy positive press and are all very much on the up. We are completely the opposite. Also, if we don't get promoted Wasps presence in the West Midlands will only continue to grow and strengthen. The acadamy regions are being redrawn in 2016 and if we aren't in the Prem we will not have a leg to stand on as to what areas we want. Also, next year is a World Cup year, which will mean this seasons late finish won't effect us as badly as it would any other year.
IMO we need to go up this season. If we didn't it wouldn't be as simple as ''oh well we will go up next season''. I also trust Dean Ryan to keep us up should we gain promotion.
A great response
What would happen if we get to the play off final but DR and his coaching team judge that we aren't ready to go up and stay up? Will we not try to win - of course not.
DR's task is to form that judgement which is why there is a lot of rotation at the moment to test capability. We have a number of players who have been tested at Prem level and failed in DR's time, and also some who were up to standard, and a lot untested.
I think we will see the team for the play offs emerge during the second half of the season, but there will be a lot of back room plotting to identify and fill the gaps should we get promoted.
We must bust a gut to get promoted this season, recognise the issues for next season and deal with them. I am sure there will be some interesting signings if we do go up
What would happen if we get to the play off final but DR and his coaching team judge that we aren't ready to go up and stay up? Will we not try to win - of course not.
DR's task is to form that judgement which is why there is a lot of rotation at the moment to test capability. We have a number of players who have been tested at Prem level and failed in DR's time, and also some who were up to standard, and a lot untested.
I think we will see the team for the play offs emerge during the second half of the season, but there will be a lot of back room plotting to identify and fill the gaps should we get promoted.
We must bust a gut to get promoted this season, recognise the issues for next season and deal with them. I am sure there will be some interesting signings if we do go up
Quote:walter1
I am sure there will be some interesting signings if we do go up
I'm not so sure there will be. The current players have signed up to a very particular philosophy, and will not be too pleased if a bunch of senior players come in and disrupt what we have built up. There will probably be gaps to fill of course, due to long-term injuries or players not fitting in, but I don't expect a flurry of signings, promotion or no promotion.
Many people "in the know" have told me that DR can be a divisive character who likes things done his way. We have seen before with weak D.o.R.s that bringing in big name senior players causes rifts as their influence gets too large. The D.o.R. should be the top dog, end of. As such, I look at the signings made by DR and it looks like he is building his team where he is the boss. Putting out a team of 15 guys all with the same philosophy will always win over a mix, as the previous two years showed. We also lost several of our best academy players due to problems with "personalities".
I think DR is bright enough to know what works so is building a squad of players that will grow into good premiership players.
I also agree with WorcesterSauce as to why we NEED to get promoted. There are a lot of young guys in our squad building towards the prize of top flight rugby. To have the rug pulled from under them would not be beneficial to us.
The words we're hearing is that we want to win everything (promotion, B&I and A League) and do so by putting teams to the sword. This isn't the talk of a club who wouldn't mind another year in the championship.
I think DR is bright enough to know what works so is building a squad of players that will grow into good premiership players.
I also agree with WorcesterSauce as to why we NEED to get promoted. There are a lot of young guys in our squad building towards the prize of top flight rugby. To have the rug pulled from under them would not be beneficial to us.
The words we're hearing is that we want to win everything (promotion, B&I and A League) and do so by putting teams to the sword. This isn't the talk of a club who wouldn't mind another year in the championship.
I sincerely hope that, having spent the 12 months repairing the damage done by the previous regimes that we don't throw the good work away and replace our new young team with a bunch of hardened old has beens just because they were once 'premiership standard'
DR has stated at least 3 times that there will be no more old lags brought in at Worcester, only players who can still improve or where there is need and the right fit..
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Fiver I fully agree. Would not like to be the guy that cross Dean Ryan. But I see that as a complement, as in addition to knowing his mind, he also knows rugby and how to biuld a great team.
Even after he left Gloucester, the core of that team carried them on for many years to come.
He is also smarter now than then.
I fully agree and buy into his strategy and if we end up a second year in the Championship it will not be the end of the world, I will buy my season ticket next year and it may even be the best thing for the club longer term.
But I want to win promotion and be back in the Premiership, but I don't want to be that bottom feeder club again...hated that.
Even after he left Gloucester, the core of that team carried them on for many years to come.
He is also smarter now than then.
I fully agree and buy into his strategy and if we end up a second year in the Championship it will not be the end of the world, I will buy my season ticket next year and it may even be the best thing for the club longer term.
But I want to win promotion and be back in the Premiership, but I don't want to be that bottom feeder club again...hated that.
what a complete and utter load of tosh.
without promotion this year we will fall out of the top eschelone for the foreseeable future
without promotion this year we will fall out of the top eschelone for the foreseeable future
Have Bristol fallen out of the top echelon for ever? They have been in the Championship for at least 4 seasons.
It purely matters what we do when we return. If we fall flat on our face again then I would suggest we will have a serious recovery problem. So we have to make sure that when we do get promoted we are more than ready.
JP
# TOGETHER
" SEMPER BELLATOR "
It purely matters what we do when we return. If we fall flat on our face again then I would suggest we will have a serious recovery problem. So we have to make sure that when we do get promoted we are more than ready.
JP
" SEMPER BELLATOR "
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