FALCONS chairman Dave Thompson has revealed the complex mass of factors being considered as Newcastle go about reshaping their squad for next season.

Despite being only halfway through the current Aviva Premiership season, preparations for next term are already well under way, with contract offers having been made to both current and prospective players.

The upcoming World Cup and stringent targets on home-grown players will both form part of the Falcons’ thinking, with Thompson saying: “The recruitment road that we’re going down has to have the right balance of English talent, because we’re aware that central funding goes up and up every season.

“The amount of English-qualified players we have to field increases next year, as does the funding we get for meeting the targets.

“This season it is 16 out of your match-day squad of 23 that have to be English-qualified, and next season it will climb further.

“That obviously pushes up the price of the English-qualified players, because their agents know they are a much more valuable commodity.

“All in all it means that getting players for next season is very complicated, and that’s before you’ve even started talking about the World Cup which is in September and October.”

With the international showpiece taking place in New Zealand in autumn of this year, the chairman said: “If you go out and sign top international players, the reality is that you will lose them for almost two months of the World Cup competition plus the pre-tournament training camps.

“Those guys will miss five or six league games, not even taking into account the Six Nations in February, and it’s just another thing you have to consider.

“An England Elite Player Squad player next season will only be available for something like 10 out of the 22 Premiership games.

“The problem for the club is how do we explain to our fans that it is not necessarily the best thing for next season to have a load of internationals in our squad, if we want to aspire.