Chris Pennell's 14-year Worcester stint is over
Veteran Chris Pennell has announced he is leaving Worcester this summer following a 14-year stint at the club which began with a 2007 Premiership debut against Bath. The 34-year-old, who was capped by England on their 2014 tour to New Zealand, had hoped to say farewell at Sixways with a final appearance this Saturday but their last game of the season was cancelled due to a virus outbreak affecting the visiting Gloucester.
The cancellation leaves Pennell bowing out with 426 points in his 253 games for Worcester, including 43 tries, but he is now hoping to continue his career elsewhere. “I’m incredibly proud of my time with the club and I feel very fortunate to have been doing what I have been doing with Worcester for so many years,” he said.
“It’s a really exciting time for the club with all the changes that have been made and I hope the success we all desire will be just around the corner. It will be nice to watch that success off the field and try to return some of the incredible support that I have had over my playing career and give it to the people that will be taking the club forward now.
“The owners have been really supportive and have told me there will always be a place for me here where I can add value so watch this space. The romantic in me thinks it would be nice to finish my playing career at Sixways but it’s also exciting for me to explore other opportunities. It has been a good number of years since there was any consideration of playing for another team and with my body but, more importantly, my head in a really good place, now is the time to move on.
“It’s an exciting time for Worcester but I am also looking forward to some new challenges and experiences as well. I genuinely feel really humbled by the amount of support that I personally have had over the years. There are a number of supporters I have got to know well and also many of our sponsors, particularly through the testimonial season.
253 games
426 points
43 triesThere won’t ever be another @chris_pennell ? pic.twitter.com/wgA5bMjw9N
— Worcester Warriors (@WorcsWarriors) June 10, 2021
“I have been really fortunate to have conversations and see first-hand the amount of passion within our community that has always matched my own and sometimes even exceeded. The level of support at Worcester is phenomenal and there are so many memories that I have over the years of the atmosphere they have created and some of those tight games that we have won are solely down to them. I’m so grateful to the support I have been given – those people in the stands and those I bump into in the city who wish you well – which has made my memories of Worcester so special.”
Pennell chose the 2015 promotion win over Bristol as his favourite Worcester match. “The obvious highlight is the Bristol promotion match but in amongst that you have got Bristol at home a couple of seasons ago when we won by 50, Exeter away when we won 6-5 and earlier on in my career some of the European trips when we got to the knockout stages stand out,” he said.
“There are almost too many to recount them all. It’s not just the matches at weekends, it’s everything that goes into it and the time you spend with people, be it players, staff, commercial team and the foundation. Everyone is working hard to make the club a success. Although my playing career is moving away, Worcester is still my home and I will maintain many of those friendships for life.”
Worcester head coach Jonathan Thomas added: “I have no doubt that he will be a success in whatever he does because he is a class act as a bloke and the way he carries himself. I am sad it’s the end of an era because he is a special man. The club will not feel the same without him around as a player because it feels like he has been Worcester.”
"There are 20 players leaving the club at the end of the season… that has certainly been really tough, some tough conversations"@JonThom82 on the work behind the scenes & the hard calls needed as they rebuild @WorcsWarriors squad, writes @heagneyl ???https://t.co/gjCIa18pmc
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) May 9, 2021
Comments on RugbyPass
We’re building a bridge but can't agree where the river is.
2 Go to commentsfirst no arms shoulder or helmet tackle into his rib cage is going to be so very painful even to watch. go back to RU mate.
1 Go to commentsBulls by 5. Plus another 50.
3 Go to commentsJohan Goosen avatar. Cute. Surely someone at RP knows how to do a google image search?
3 Go to commentsCan’t these games play a little earlier? Asking for a friend.
3 Go to commentsIt’s impressive that we can see huge stadiums with attendance in the 40 000 to 50 000 region. It shows how popular this competition is becoming. What is even more impressive is the massive growth in broadcast viewership. The URC is one of the two best leagues in the World, the other being the Top14.
7 Go to commentsChristie is not Sottish, like the majority of the Scotland team.
2 Go to commentsHold the phone, decline over-rated. Is it a one game, dead cat bounce or the real thing? Has the Penney dropped? Stay tuned.
45 Go to commentsTotally deserved win for the Crusaders Far smarter than the Chiefs who seem to be avoiding the basics when it matters Hotham showed them what was missing and Hannah seems a real find - a tad light but that can be fixed over time
8 Go to commentsGreat insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
2 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
7 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
45 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
8 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
8 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
8 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
45 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to comments