DEAN Ryan’s number one goal at Sixways will be to break the spiral of mediocrity that has dogged Warriors ever since they gate-crashed the top-flight of English rugby.

Despite many millions of pounds invested, a stadium and infrastructure the envy of most of the Premiership and a loyal, committed fanbase, Worcester have been unable to break out of the league’s bottom four.

Former Gloucester boss Ryan believes the club needs to take a more long-term view to makes strides up the division.

“I won’t pretend it is going to be easy just because we have changed the coaching staff and got some new players in,” he admitted. “If all we look at is the next six months, we’ll never know where we are and will end up spiralling around.

“As this place has a history of doing, you make decisions that compromise your next year and the one after, so you are in exactly the same place in 12 months’ time.

“We are not going to suddenly sprinkle magic dust over ourselves and everything will work out – that’s pie in the sky.

“What we have to do is to get our heads down, work hard and see where we are across the season. If we do that, we will get the chance to understand where we are and then add to it.”

Ryan added: “What this club will look like in two to three weeks, I don’t know the answer to that and neither should it affect the way we make decisions. If everyone starts chasing what’s going to happen in the next two to three months, you will compromise what happens in 24 or 36 months.

“We have to get this place to be competitive and I have to do that with this playing group.

“There isn’t a huge amount of flexibility to change, so I need to make sure I don’t make any decisions that compromise our second and third years, Then we can get to a clean transfer window and see what influence we can make.

“This place is now well coached. There is good intellect at the top and good young coaches coming thr-ough to support that.

“People need to get up to speed with what is required from them – that will be a culture change for some people and we’ll see how they adapt over the next 12 months. Those who adapt quickly will get a chance to stay with it.

“If they can’t adapt and improve, it doesn’t matter what coaching environment you’ve got – you can’t take them forward."