Toasted by Tequila: Worcester title win is only the start, insists Everard

As victory anthems go, Worcester’s choice of ‘Tequila’ couldn’t be any more appropriate. A song written and performed by The Champs, now adopted by The Champs … of English rugby’s second tier.

Worcester found their voices when it mattered, bouncing back from a shaky end to the regular season to win three knockout games and take home the title in their first season back as a professional entity.

Without promotion to the Gallagher PREM being possible for at least three more years, it will be hard for them to top Sunday’s 27-14 win over Bedford Blues.

But head coach Matt Everard, who did a marvellous job pulling together a squad from scratch at barely four months’ notice, is excited about what this group can achieve together.

“This very much a long-term plan, a long-term project, to get the club back to where we want to be,” he told RugbyPass.

“Year one was about us getting tight and caring about each other and making the fans really proud of our effort and building a foundation to work off.

“When you have fans like we do, and are you are tight, and you do care about each other and you show a load of effort you end up actually winning things.

“It’s a really good start to the long-term plan, which is to get to the Premiership at the earliest opportunity handed to us.

“This was never a hit-and-run mission from Chris Holland, down to Stephen Vaughan, down to myself.”

With Champ players back in favour with PREM clubs when it comes to recruitment, there’s always a danger that Worcester’s squad painstakingly put together bit by bit by Everard would be picked off.

But, so far, Fijian prop Tim Huyt (Lyon) and Khalik Khareem (Bristol) are the only ones heading to pastures new, as well as lead analyst Herbie Archer (Harlequins).

“I would love everyone involved to stay with us and be a part of it and get to the top flight with us. But naturally with the circumstances, opportunities will arise for guys who are doing really, really well and we have got to encourage and support that,” said Everard, who became a father for the third time just over a week before the final.

“It’s a good reflection of the programme if people are coming in and are enjoying it, improving and geting recognised by the top flight, whether it bethe Top 14, the Prem, or the URC, it shines a really positive light on the programme.”

With Lloyd Williams and ex-skipper Matt Rogerson retiring, Worcester have gaps to fill at scrum-half and the back-row.

“There’s not a massive amount of ins and outs. You put together a team from scratch, and I am really proud of how they are going, so it would be really bonkers to rip it up and start again,” he said.

“Naturally, there is always going to be outs – we’ve had a couple of retirements in Lloyd Williams and Matt Rogerson, who have been amazing, so we have got some leadership and experience to fill there, and we need some depth in other positions.

“But the wholesale message around recruitment is around retention, and adding a bit on top of what we have got.

“People speak about relationships in length, I speak about relationships in depth,” he added. “Ours as a squad aren’t very, very long but they are very, very deep. We have only been together for 10 months but the lads really care about each other and enjoy each other’s company.”

Worcester intend to restart their academy, regardless of the fact that they don’t hold one of the RFU’s licenses. Some of their Champ rivals have ploughed their own furrow and made a good go of it, including Everard’s former club Nottingham.

Whilst captain of the club in his mid-20s, Everard was asked by his then head coach, Martin Haag, to build up an academy team from ground zero.

Working with teammate Joe Cobden, he set up trials in inner-city Nottingham and unearthed some gems, including two players who played in the Champ Final – Worcester loose forward Hallam Chapman and Bedford prop Jamie Jack.

“It’s really cool to see those guys doing so well. I suppose that was a small scale way of doing it,” he said.

“We are currently looking at restarting the academy at Worcester, and bringing in a Head of Academy is the first thing we need to do to get that off the ground.

“In terms of the process of interviewing for that, that experience at Nottingham has been really useful, trying to pass on some of the experiences I had of starting an academy from scratch.”

Haag, “a top, top man”, is one of many experienced heads that Everard learnt from as a player and then as a defence coach at Wasps and Leicester before Worcester gave him his big break.

While coaching Worcester in the PREM is not possible for a while, he did get to experience plenty of top-level environments during the four months he had to prepare the team for their Champ return.

“The coaching network is brilliant, everyone is very, very kind and supports each other. Everyone is fighting the same fight at the end of the day.

“Lee Blackett didn’t coach me but he coached me how to coach at Wasps; he is a very good friend of mine and is someone I speak to very regularly. Richard Wigglesworth is the same. I worked with him at Leicester and is a good friend who I speak to regularly.

“In that four months, I went to Bath, and spent two days there and watched Johann van Graan; I went to Saints and watched Phil Dowson; I went to Sarries for a day and watched Smally (Mark McCall); I went to Gloucester for a couple of days and watched Skivs (George Skivington); I spent a day with England and watched Steve (Borthwick), he’s been an incredible support as well from our time together at Leicester, and I have probably missed off a few other names as well.

“I took that opportunity to go and speak to people. I have experience from my time time at Wasps and Leicester but it is always good to see how people do things and ask questions.”

No questions can be asked of Everard’s commitment to Worcester. After a few days off this week, he’ll be back at it, planning more moments for Worcester’s brotherhood to clear their lungs and celebrate.

Celebratory songs have become a thing in the PREM; Bristol have their Blackbird song, Northampton’s ‘Shoe Army’ has almost become as well known, and ‘We Are the Boys from Gloucester’ rings out from the Kingsholm home changing room, the few times that they’ve won.

Worcester didn’t jump on the bandwagon immediately but Tequila is going down well. “At the start of the year we said, let’s not force it, let’s see what comes out organically. But the song Tequila had started to defeinitely grab a bit of momentum post-game,” Everard revealed.

“It came from having a laugh together; we did karoake after training one day and split the group into four teams, and one team did that, bearing in mind it has only got one word repeated three times, which is Tequila. It was very, very funny.

“We had our Fijian loosehead Lival Natave saying Tequila in his deep voice, and the lads loved it, so it has deifnitely caught on.”