It’s been an exciting and busy time at the Gloucester Rugby Academy with the formation of the new Gloucester Rugby Elite Academy. A number of the Cherry and Whites’ young talent are also set to be getting game time out on loan in the Championship.

Elite Academy

Gloucester Rugby have formed a new branch of the Academy which will act as a bridge between the Senior Academy and the first team, providing greater links between the two set ups.

The new Elite Academy will see players train with the first-team on a regular basis, allowing them to be challenged and develop alongside the experience that is in the first team squad.

Recently, Conor Maguire has joined the Elite Academy from Dragons and is an exciting young loose-head prop who will hope to prosper in this new set up.

Maguire has represented Leinster at Under-18, Under-19 and Under-20 level and also featured for Ireland Under-18s and Under-19s, before joining the Dragons on a short-term deal.

The aim is to have a player in each position in the Elite Academy so that a strong group of young players can grow and get exposed to the first team environment.

Peter Walton, Head of Academy, is excited about the new structure.

“We decided that this campaign we’d push players up. We had about 25 players in our senior academy and we decided to push 18 of them to form an Elite Academy. They are players that we want to challenge and get around the first team. The rest will stay in the Senior Academy and we feel that they will just take a bit longer to come through. It doesn’t mean that the Senior Academy players aren’t going to make it, it just means that they need more time.”

The idea is that the members of the Elite Academy will gain a lot from the experience and they’ll be better suited to step up when their time comes.

“It’s a bit of a two-way thing. If we need players, we can step players up from the Senior Academy into the Elite and then the Elite into the first team so that’s how it works.

“There are players who we need to see challenged in that first team environment and that’s what we’re trying to do. It also keeps the first team players on their toes because it keeps them thinking ‘crikey, there’s a young player coming through, I better up my game’ which is good and healthy.”

Gloucester Rugby’s Elite Academy

Forwards

Ethan Hunt

Jenson Boughton

Jack Bartlett

Ollie Adkins

Arthur Clark

Cameron Jordan

Jack Clement

Conor Maguire

Freddie Thomas

Backs

Stephen Varney

Toby Venner

George Barton

Louis Hillman-Cooper

Jacob Morris

Alex Morgan

The formation of the Elite Academy is another example of how important developing young, local talent is to Gloucester Rugby’s plans for the future.

“We see this as the future of the club. We want players to come through from the Academy. If that’s coming through from when they first joined the DPP at age 14 and going all the way through or if it’s from joining the academy when they’re 16/17, we see that as the future of the club. Yes, we’ll always look to bring in areas where we lack from a first team point of view, but we want to recruit from within.”

Gloucester Rugby Academy update | New Elite Academy & players on loan

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