Savage and Sharples sign new Gloucester contracts

Gloucester have today announce that Tom Savage and Charlie Sharples have agreed new long term contracts to extend their stays at Kingsholm.
26-year-old Savage has been one of the real success stories at Kingsholm in recent seasons. He skippered Hartpury RFC to the National Three South West title in 2011 before moving to Gloucester. He is now closing in on 100 competitive appearances and even captained the side in the 2013-14 season.
Meanwhile, Sharples has been a fixture in the first team squad since making his debut in the 2007-08 season.
He has gone on to make 173 competitive appearances scoring 64 tries on the way.
Savage said: “To have everything agreed so early is massive for me. I've loved every minute of my time at Gloucester, to have my future sorted so early is great and I'm grateful to the club for making this happen.
“I think this squad has so much potential. We showed glimpses of it last season, especially in Europe when we won the Challenge Cup, but we all recognise that we need to be more consistent.
“We're a settled group coming into this season, and we've so much talent in the squad. It's an exciting time and I'm really fired up about playing my part this season and seeing what we can achieve in the future.”
Sharples added: “I'm incredibly happy to have signed a new contract. I've been with Gloucester my whole career and didn't have any intention of looking elsewhere.
“Players often say that it's a relief to get things sorted early when it's a contract year, and that's absolutely true. It's a real boost to know that the club wanted to get it all done and dusted, and I can focus 100% on the rugby now without worrying about anything else.
“Gloucester is a good place to be at the moment. It's a settled group, players and coaches alike, and we're really looking forward to building on the foundations we put in place last season.”
Director of rugby David Humphreys commented: “We've had a really good start to pre season and securing the long term future of Charlie and Tom is a huge boost to our goal of building a talented and competitive squad to challenge in both the Aviva Premiership and Europe.
“To achieve this we will need to continue to recruit and add players to the squad but more importantly, we want to retain those players who have delivered for Gloucester over the past few seasons.
“Charlie and Tom play key roles, both on and off the pitch, and I'm delighted they have committed to Gloucester as we prepare for the start of an important season.”