Jonny Arr says he is ready to shoulder greater responsibility at Worcester and ensure the Warriors shake off their tag of under-achievers.
And scrum-half Arr, who signed a new two-year deal with the club in December and is its longest-serving current player, is dissatisfied with the newly-promoted club’s record of two wins from their opening batch of Premiership matches.
“We’re sitting on the verge here, but for us it’s not enough to be almost there – we’re fed up of that now,” said Arr, whose Warriors side has yo-yoed between the Premiership and the Championship since he made his first-team debut in 2007.
“We know we’re good enough to get results and move forwards, not backwards.
“My goal is to see this club change and change for the better.”
Wins over Northampton and Newcastle might be thought to represent a decent beginning to the Warriors’ return to the top-flight, but Arr is setting the bar higher.
“Whilst we’ve started pretty well, we expect more,” the former England U20s half-back told me. “We want more from the effort we’re putting in and the positions we’re putting ourselves in.
“We are gutted not to have picked up a couple more wins. We’re not content with losing by the narrowest of margins here. We feel like we’re good enough to be getting more results.”
Arr, who has been at the club since he was 10, views his seniority and new contract as bringing new leadership duties.
“I think I have to regard it as having a bit more responsibility. My time here has flown by and all of a sudden I’m 27 not 18 and I’m sitting on quite a few appearances.
“My role has to chance given what I’ve done. I’ll look to give input where I can and add a bit of value to the side.
“Whether I’m playing or not playing, I just want to see this team get better.”
Dean Ryan jettisoned a number of established Worcester players when he took control of the club two years ago, but Arr has remained a pivotal figure in the director of rugby’s plans. And Arr believes there is still much to come from Ryan’s transformation.
“Dean has worked extremely hard to bring his vision,” he said. “We took a bit of a hit when he first arrived with relegation but it gave us a year to really start from scratch.
“It might take a year or two but the plans we have in place are good enough for us to bring that change.”
