Loyal Harden staying at Kingsholm
Young England Saxons tightead prop Rupert Harden has shown loyalty to the club that has developed him as a player by signing a new contract with Gloucester.
Harden was first offered a contract at Kingsholm in the summer of 2009 before honing his skills and working on his match with a loan spell at Championship side Moseley, and started to feature regularly in the Gloucester Rugby first team in the latter half of 2010/11.
Those efforts saw him named as the club’s most improved forward, and this season has seen the 25 year old cement his place as the club’s first choice tighthead prop and earn international recognition with selection for the England Saxons squad for their games against the Irish Wolfhounds and Scotland A.
Harden was quick to pay tribute to the Gloucester coaches for his development thus far.
He said: The coaching set-up is awesome, Hoggy and Brainer have been great and shown a lot of faith, and I want to repay that. Brushy is great to work for as well, so that, plus the fact that all the boys are awesome, there wasn’t any reason to leave to be honest.
“I’ve got all my mates here, and I’m very happy. There’s an element of loyalty in this, definitely. You can’t ask for a better place to perform than Kingsholm, and the fans are great.
“You can’t deny there’s always an aspect of having to earn a living, but when the professional situation is right, and that comes on top of that fantastic support, then you can’t be in a better scenario.
“So there was no reason to look elsewhere, this was the club that showed faith when no one else really would. And that can’t be put into a monetary term. So there wasn’t ever much of a thought process with regard to leaving,” he explained.
Head coach Bryan Redpath stressed that Harden has made the most of his chance at Gloucester and added that there is potentially a lot more to come from him.
“Credit to Rupert. He’s realised there is an opportunity here and he’s knuckled down. He’s been rewarded with a Saxons call up and he deserves it. He’s a young man with a lot of talent and could go a long way. He needs to keep working hard but he’s done extremely well for us,” he said.
