WORCESTER Warriors legend Craig Gillies is delighted with the club’s efforts to retain their hot prospects after seeing many promising youngsters depart in the past decade.

This week has seen Worcester signal their intention to invest in the future by handing rising stars Ted Hill and Ollie Lawrence first-team contracts.

The two 19-year-olds are both highly-rated with flanker Hill recently making his England debut and centre Lawrence tipped to follow suit.

Gillies who made a club record 288 appearances between 2002 and 2013 admitted Worcester have faced “criticism for a long time” for their inability to hang on to their talent.

But with Hill and Lawrence now putting pen to paper the former lock reckons Warriors are “making strides in the right direction” under boss Alan Solomons.

“We have had a production line going back 10 years or so under (ex-academy managers) Andrew Stanley and Gary Meechan,” Gillies said.

“The academy brought an awful lot of players through but the big criticism was that they never seemed to be able to hang on to them.

“Richard Blaze, Miles Benjamin, Matt Mullan, Tom Wood, Dylan Hartley and Graham Kitchener.

“All those guys have been through the academy structure at Warriors and ended up going on to bigger and better things at other clubs.

“If you can get young players of the calibre of Ted, develop them and then retain them that it is a huge positive for the club.

“It shows they are making strides in the right direction.”

Gillies has also been pleased to see a number of Warriors’ young guns get chances to shine in the first-team.

Hill has established himself as a regular in Solomons’ side since bursting onto the scene in September while Lawrence has also made his Premiership debut this term.

“It is great to see the strength of the academy again and the youngsters getting game-time,” Gillies said.

“If you look at a lot of those players that I mentioned earlier – and you could add a load more to that list – I think one of their main frustrations was the amount of opportunities that they got.

“You can understand from a player’s point of view that it is a short career and they want to challenge themselves by playing.”

Gillies has been impressed by the performances of Hill who has scored five tries in eight showings this season.

The 42-year-old said he now hoped Warriors could “build a side around” the likes of Hill who was born and brought up in Worcester.

“It is a key part of any club to have that local connection and guys coming through that have a link to the local area,” Gillies said.

“If you can breed a core of those guys and build a side around them then that creates strong roots within the team.”

He added: “Ted has made a huge impact this year. He has taken his chances by putting in some cracking performances.

“I think the guy has got a big future in the game both at Warriors and internationally.”