Easter slams 'false promises' and retweets damning Worcester story

Former England back-rower Nick Easter has tweeted his frustration over the ongoing saga of broken promises at crisis club Worcester. Despite numerous deadlines suggesting that the troubled Gallagher Premiership club was on the verge of being sold, no deal has yet gone through and it has left the futures of players and staff in limbo.

It was May 6 when Easter decided to quit Newcastle for Worcester after two seasons working under the departing Dean Richards as their defence coach. He had previously worked for two seasons in Super Rugby as defence and forwards coach with the Durban-based Sharks and two seasons as defence coach of Harlequins, the club he represented a record 281 times as a player.

Easter also won 54 England caps between 2007 and 2015 and played in three World Cups, so he arrived at Worcester with a CV to be reckoned with and was looking forward to being their new defence and forwards coach for the 2022/23 season, taking over the defence coach role from Jonny Bell, who re-joined Ulster, and taking on the forwards coach duties previously held by Jonathan Thomas, who left the Warriors in January.

In May, Easter described his excitement about his move south, stating: “It’s a fresh start under Steve (Diamond) and it is an excellent opportunity. It’s a club with good investment, ambitious owners and one that needs to be put on the map.”

Four months later, though, it’s safe to say that Easter now has a very different view of the “ambitious owners” who have since put Worcester on the map in recent times for very different reasons than good investment.

Fed up with the current situation threatening the continued participation of Worcester in the 2022/23 season, Easter tweeted: “The number of false promises to staff may well be in double figures now in less than a month. Wonder who will get the blame this time. ‘Computer said no’ maybe.”

These comments were in response to a tweet from a journalist about current co-owner Jason Whittingham who said on Sunday around 2pm that he was at the final stages of agreeing on the heads of terms on a sale and that a formal announcement was coming in 48 hours.

“Some PR advice... if you're giving yourselves a public deadline, do try to hit it, or everyone is going to go mad,” suggested the rugby writer after that Tuesday deadline had passed.

Easter later retweeted a separate comment from another journalist who was talking about a Sportsmail story in which the Government were accused of aiding the asset-stripping at Worcester. “Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse. This is bordering on bent. The whole thing stinks,” read the tweet endorsed by the Worcester assistant coach.

Worcester are due to play Gloucester on Wednesday night in the Premiership Rugby Cup but they still hadn’t confirmed a team selection ten hours prior to the kick-off at Kingsholm. They are also supposed to host Newcastle this Saturday in the Gallagher Premiership.