Warriors setting ambitious targets

NEW Worcester Warriors women managing director Jon Graham has high hopes for his new club going forward, with ambitious targets both off and on the field for Premiership Women’s Rugby’s (PWR) only independent team. 

- NICK POWELL

With Warriors’ men’s side becoming the first of three clubs to go into administration last season, drop out of the Premiership and now extremely unlikely to participate in the English league system in the upcoming season, it has been a turbulent 12 months for the Sixways-based club.

But the optimistic Graham views the women’s side’s independence and as an opportunity, and with the future of the women’s game looking considerably healthier than that of the men’s, he had no hesitation in taking up the role.

“It’s a task,” Graham said. “But it’s one that is just unbelievably exciting. It’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity, this is unlikely to happen again for some time.

“With us being the first independent club, PWR re-launching a week ago, and the Rugby World Cup in 2025 coming to England, what’s not to like about all those things? So that’s ultimately why I took the role.”

Graham has a proven track record in improving businesses, and sports teams, from difficult situations. In a variety of roles at Worcestershire County Cricket Club he helped transform their business and commercial sectors to support an extraordinary improvement in fortunes, which saw them win Division Two of The County Championship and the T20 Blast competitions in consecutive years.

Although he admitted there is only so much a managing director can do off the field, he believes that the margins made can eventually lead to better results on it, and he is looking to replicate the success achieved at Worcestershire with bold targets at his new club.

“At Worcestershire it was a very similar set of circumstances” he added. “In cricket T20s are the keys to the kingdom, that’s where you make your money, but we were awful.