MARK JONES
New Worcester Warriors coach urges young guns to show loyalty
NEW Worcester coach Mark Jones has urged Sixways stars Ollie Lawrence and Ted Hill to follow the example of Tottenham’s Harry Kane by ignoring siren calls from elsewhere.
Former England fly-half Stuart Barnes recently suggested that barnstorming centre Lawrence must move to a bigger, more successful club if he to realise his full Test potential, while Warriors teammate and club captain Hill will undoubtedly come under similar pressure.
However, former Wales winger Jones, who arrived at Sixways last week after seeing his hopes of continuing in his previous role at New Zealand’s Crusaders scuppered by Covid-19, sees no reason why both players should not achieve their ambitions at their hometown club.
Jones told The Rugby Paper: “Whenever you look at a team that isn’t fighting regularly in the top-half, their best players will always be targeted and talked about, with people saying if they want to win trophies or more caps, they’re not going to be able to do it there.
“But we have to look at what’s going to give that player the best chance of maximising their potential.
“If I go back to when I was a player, the drive for me at the Scarlets was that I loved playing for that club, loved what it stood for in terms of giving opportunities to young players and I sensed that by staying it would put me in a really good position to be an international.
“You want players to think Worcester is a good place to continually be selected by England and put them in a position to win Grand Slams or World Cups, and from there the trophy cabinet here will look after itself because something big always has to start somewhere.
“You look at Exeter and how they’ve developed by holding on to their best young players and we’re excited by the Ollie Lawrences, Ted Hills and all the other guys we can produce over the next ten years. If we keep these guys as the spine of the team and then start dropping in some real quality around them, all of a sudden you can be in a position to win things.”
Jones, below, added: “There’s a lot more to it than guys moving to a so-called more fashionable club because, honestly, there’s no reason why people can’t achieve their ambitions here.
“I think there’s something special about staying with a club you’ve traditionally been at and it’s like Harry Kane, I suppose. He’s determined to win something with Tottenham Hotspur and he’s got an experienced manager like Jose Mourinho there now to help him do it.
“Yes, I’m a Spurs supporter, so I hope he’s going to get it all now and I actually think the satisfaction of doing that will be better than going to Real Madrid and picking up a La Liga trophy. That’s how I’d like to think guys like Ollie and Ted will want to look at their futures.” Jones, meanwhile, is relieved to have found a new coaching gig after it became apparent that his successful spell working alongside Scott Robertson at the Crusaders was over. At Worcester, he will primarily be in charge of defence while having an input into attack
He explained: “Up until three weeks ago I wasn’t expecting this and it’s been a hell of a swing in circumstances. I’m not disappointed to be at Worcester, but it was disappointing not to be able to go back to the Crusaders because I’d really enjoyed my first year there.
“New Zealand have got some good Covid-19 quarantine criteria in place and they were happy to have me back on a specialist work permit, but Kiwis are currently heading back there in their droves and I just couldn’t get a spot for me and my family in a quarantine hotel.
“You just can’t align a flight with the quarantine rules right now and I couldn’t get a room until the end of February. I would then have had to do two weeks in quarantine, which would have made it mid-March before I could get back out on the grass coaching at the Crusaders, and by then we’d have been five matches into the new season – a huge stumbling block.
“Razor (Robertson) had already given me an extra two weeks off after I’d done back-to-back Rugby Aotearoa and Mitre 10 Cup campaigns with the Crusaders and Canterbury and he was good about it, but we had to make a decision so they released me from my contract.”
Jones will be reunited at Worcester with former Wales teammate Jonathan Thomas, who was last week promoted to head coach.
He added: “I was lucky because generally there’s very little coaching movement at this time of year because the various groups are settled.
“But once my availability became known Worcester came back quickly and although they’d not been looking to add an extra coach until next season, they chose to do it now.
“Jonathan’s a good guy so once Alan Solomons had outlined his vision for the club around the youth he’s trying to install from the academy, it was an exciting opportunity.
“People might say you’re going from the Crusaders to Worcester and that’s a big change, certainly in terms of winning titles. But it’s more around the potential of this group, where they’re aiming to go and looking to break the mould, rather than where the club’s been.
“From talking to Alan, there’s really good alignment in terms of goals from the board through to the coaches and players – just like I found at Canterbury and Crusaders.”