WORCESTER Warriors will have a tough pre-season and a smaller squad.

That’s the vision of director of rugby Gary Gold if he remains in Warriors’ hot-seat after their Aviva Premiership survival was confirmed at the weekend.

The former South Africa assistant coach will hope to engage “a lot more” with the players if he extends his role at the club beyond the end of the season.

“I think there is a lot of work that still needs to be done but the guys have applied themselves since I’ve been here,” said Gold who arrived at Sixways at the end of January.

“The pre-season would require a lot of work but it would probably be a lot more of the same so the guys can get used to the level of intensity required to try to compete with the top teams.

“You look at the way Saracens, Exeter and Wasps play and there’s a level of intensity and a pace.

"That does not happen unless you’ve trained at that level on a consistent basis.

“There’s a lot of hard work to be done but I don’t think a huge amount of changes need to take place.”

Gold says Warriors’ squad next term could be “a bit smaller” than the current one.

But much will depend on the players Worcester bring to the club.

“Potentially the squad could even be a bit smaller but it depends on the quality of the signings we are looking to bring in over the next couple of months,” said Gold.

“I would want to engage with a lot more of the players and show a lot more trust in them.

“When you start getting squads of 50 and 60 players it becomes very difficult to give everybody a run but you also have to be aware injury rates have gone up in the Premiership.

“That’s going higher now with attention on head injury assessments and you need to take that into consideration.

“You would want a squad where everyone feels trusted to play and you are able to share the load across the squad and hopefully get success from that.”