WITH Worcester Warriors’ thriving academy set-up and director of rugby Mike Ruddock’s penchant for blooding youngsters in the first XV, Sixways is a great place to be for up-and-coming players.

A host of current first-teamers have come from the academy, while several have been with the club right from the mini-juniors.

It is with a sense of immense pride that Warriors academy manager Andrew Stanley casts his eye over the current first team squad.

He explained: “Looking through the match day programme, it is noticeable that more than a third of our squad is made up of either existing or past members of the academy, which is a healthy position for any club to be in.

“We’ve been fortunate with the numbers of players who have broken through all at once, but if we can convert one or two academy players in to the first team every year, we’d be happy.

“Mike Ruddock is a big fan of youth too and, from an academy perspective, that is a good formula for us.”

Throughout his coaching career, Ruddock has never been scared to throw his talented youngsters in at the deep end.

In fact, the Warriors boss handed first professional contracts to the likes of Gordon D’Arcy, Brian O’Driscoll, Girvan Dempsey and Shane Horgan when he was coach at Leinster and he is doing the same at Sixways.

Academy graduates including Tom Wood, Miles Benjamin, Matt Mullan, Chris Pennell, Joe Carlisle, Graham Kitchener, Matt Cox and Jonny Arr have all broken into the first team and not looked out of their depth.

This kind of faith in the academy is testament to the sterling work Stanley and his assistant, Gary Meechan, are doing.

Stanley added: “People who came to watch us play the Army Under 23s would have seen a host of youngsters who are the next generation of players coming through.

“People like Andy Short, Earl Collins and James Whybrow are all 17-year-olds who played for us and did well.

“Having spoken to some of the fans, those lads caught the eye and they have been asking about them. We’re here to keep producing first team stars.

“People like Jonny Arr, Charlie Fellows and Jake Abbott have played for the club since they were six or seven years of age and it is fantastic Worcester still have that old fashioned link right back to the mini-juniors section.

“We’ve also got other lads who are currently in the Elite Player Development set-up who were also mini-juniors at Worcester, which is fantastic.

“There are hundreds of kids here on Sunday mornings and it is a hot bed of talent.”