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A tale of two very different rugby teams set on one bruising collision course

Sale Sharks head to Glasgow Warriors this lunchtime

In the long history of Sale Sharks, the past decade reads like a weary trudge through mediocrity. Across that ten-year spell, the club have never finished higher than sixth in the English Premiership, slap-bang in the middle of the table. Since winning the title in 2006, their best placing is a single berth higher.

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They have competed in the second-tier European Challenge Cup in three of the past four seasons, during which time they have ended the Premiership campaign sixth, tenth, eighth and seventh. Last term, they won exactly half of their 22 league matches, typically filled around half of the seats in their 12,000-capacity AJ Bell Stadium, and only relegated Newcastle Falcons scored fewer points. For a team with some marvellous attacking players, it was a pitifully impotent return.

No longer are Sale content to middle along like this, following shooting-star performances with meek beatings. In the summer, they tooled up in a massive way, spending more than they have ever done in Steve Diamond’s eight years as director of rugby, maxing out the salary cap with an army of South African juggernauts. The Sharks are banking on success and inflating crowd figures to help justify the outlay.

In have come some monstrous specimens. Springboks Coenie Oosthuizen, Akker van der Merwe, and the brilliant Embrose Papier, World Cup-winner Lood de Jager, all three Du Preez brothers, England scavenger Mark Wilson and more besides arrived.

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Four of their players – De Jager and Faf de Klerk for South Africa, Wilson and Tom Curry for England – featured in the World Cup final. Sale have crowed about their unprecedented depth this season and the talk has obvious substance. Without their international contingent, they are fourth in the Premiership table with the league’s best points difference. As a team, they have beaten more defenders than any other side and conceded the fewest points. The two games they lost, at Gloucester and Bristol, were exceedingly tight affairs.

This is a squad armed with more ammunition than it has been for years, and this is the challenge rumbling north towards Glasgow on Saturday, the first skirmish of a fiendishly tough Champions Cup group to predict.

None of Diamond’s finalists will play, and nor will the stricken Josh Beaumont, a thoroughbred lock, rapier centre Rohan Janse van Rensburg or the prolific Denny Solomona, who has racked up 41 tries in 68 Sharks appearances. That is a serious bonus for Warriors, but Sale will feel the weaponry they have in their stead is enough to get the job done.

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USA pivot AJ MacGinty is a canny play-maker and on the bench Rob du Preez, the eldest of the trio of siblings, is the Premiership’s top points-scorer. Twins Dan and Jean-Luc are rugged, bludgeoning loose forwards, the sort of confrontational bruisers Glasgow and Scotland are often accused of lacking.

You shudder at the thought of the food bill in the Du Preez household while these three were growing up, and you marvel at the Curry twins – Tom, one of the finest open-sides in the game and Ben, immensely effective for Sale with Test recognition a strong possibility.

Papier may not be De Klerk, but he can break as though fired from a cannon. There is a great swell of excitement around Cam Redpath, the son of former Scotland captain Bryan who has nailed his colours to England’s mast and starts at outside centre. Simon Hammersley is a lovely, balanced runner at full-back, an astute pick-up from relegated Falcons.

Byron McGuigan, the former Glasgow back, has started the season in blistering form after being left out of Scotland’s World Cup squad, and gets a shot at his old side. Marland Yarde is back playing and scoring, at long last, from an awful knee injury 13 months ago, and the deadly Chris Ashton is among the substitutes.

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Diamond himself is by turns bombastic, uncompromising and divisive. He has a long and ugly disciplinary rap sheet. In recent seasons, he has been sanctioned for abusing match officials, publicly accusing a referee of “making decisions up”, and pushing an opposition staff member, and has also made derisory remarks about concussion protocols. Last year, he was involved in a particularly unsightly altercation with a journalist who had written a withering piece painting the coach as domineering and out of touch, offering the reporter outside the press room where part of the bizarre row was caught on film.

Nevertheless, some of the biggest names to have played under him – James O’Connor, Danny Cipriani, De Klerk – speak about the brawny former hooker and what he has done for their careers in glowing terms.
What Diamond, unsurprisingly, wants to construct is a game plan founded on a style he sees as the traditional forward-dominated Sale way. He wants to create the depth and quality to field two equally potent packs of snarling behemoths, the kind of muscle Philippe Saint-Andre assembled in the title run of 2006.

This is the very antithesis of Glasgow rugby. Warriors do not play with the glorious but often detrimental abandon of Dave Rennie’s first year in charge, but they will never look to club teams into submission with a huge pack. The Glasgow blueprint is about speed, explosiveness and precision.

The rejuvenated and reinforced Sharks present their first serious test of the season and a monumentally important one. The early rounds of the Pro14 have not been impressive, a high-altitude shellacking in Bloemfontein, a home defeat by Scarlets, a dull win over Cardiff Blues and an even duller loss to Dragons, followed by heartening bonus-point victories over Southern Kings and Zebre, the league’s weakest teams.

Lose a few Pro14 games in the early throes and you have ample time and opportunity to claw back the difference. Lose at home in the Champions Cup, even in the first round of matches, and you’re up against it in a big way.

For all that he was unavailable to Glasgow for swathes of any given season, Stuart Hogg is a colossal loss, especially in this most ruthless of competitions. Rennie cannot recruit a player of his calibre to plug the gap and so he has trusted Tommy Seymour, the veteran winger, to fill the void at full-back.

If the New Zealander is to leave come summer, and the indications are that he will, then this is his third and final crack at the Champions Cup. With Glasgow horsing the Pro14 in his debut season, he underestimated the ferocity of the continental top tier and his team were duly battered. The following campaign, they got to the last eight and took an almighty pasting from Saracens.

Sale’s record on the road was grim in the last campaign, only two away wins across the entire Premiership season. Glasgow have lost only twice in 10 matches at home to English opposition. Wielding more muscle and more quality, Sharks will expect to fetch up at Scotstoun and administer a physical pummelling. Glasgow will back themselves to outmanoeuvre the bruisers in their midst. The upshot will be fascinating and crucial.

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Flankly 34 minutes ago
Why ‘the curse of the Bambino’ is still stronger than ever at Leinster

A first half of defensive failures is a problem, but they rectified that after half time. That left them with a points-difference mountain to climb. They actually did it, and spent minutes at the end of the game three points adrift, with possession, and on the opposition goal line. They had an extra player. And they also had a penalty right there.


Forget anything else that happened in the game … top teams convert that. They rise to the moment, reduce errors, maintain discipline, increase their energy, and sharpen their focus for those moments that matter. And the question for fans is simply one of why their team could not do this, patiently and accurately retaining possession while creating a scoring opportunity.


Different teams would have done different things with that penalty. A dominant scrumming team might have called the scrum, a successful mauling team might have gone for the lineout, a team with a rock star kicker and a sense of late game superiority might have taken the kick for goal, and a another team might have set a Rassie-esque midfield maul to allow an easy dropped goal. You pick what you have confidence in.


So Leinster picking the tap is not wrong, as long as that is a banker play for them. But don’t pick an option involving forwards smashing into gainline tackles if you have less than 100% confidence in your ball retention.


In the end it all came down to whether Leinster could convert that penalty to points. The stage was set, they held all the cards, and it was time for the killer blow (to mix a few metaphors). This is when giants impose themselves.


The coaching team need to stare at those few minutes of tape 1,000 times, and ask themselves why the team could not land that winning blow. Its not about selections, or replacements, or refereeing, or skillsets, or technique. It is a question of attitude and Big Match Temperament. It’s about imposing your will. Why was it not in evidence?

5 Go to comments
W
Werner 1 hour ago
URC teams aren't proving Stephen Donald wrong

Mate, you're the one that brought up financials saying they have to run a 12 month season to make ends meet. If they were in the SRP they would be struggling more financially. If you think financials don't have an impact a teams competitiveness I would argue different. More money means more capacity to retain and develop talent, to develop rugby pathways and most importantly keep the lights on during the ebb years.


Secondly if we are calling SRP and URC a domestic comp I feel like we're colouring well outside the lines. But if we are drawing parallels to SRP and URC “domestic” comps and you're question of dominance I'd point out that SA have had 3 teams in each quarter final since they joined and either won or been a runner up to the tournament every year. Hardly flunking it. As far as fanbase, you can use viewership, subscriptions or bums on seats and CC is still ahead on the fanbase vs SRP, the benefit of a rugby nation with double the population of AU.

Other than financials the benefits of URC are also as you mentioned more games but also more teams and players getting exposure to professional rugby (it's actually 5 teams if you include the repechage of the SA teams). With the schedules and competition setup all URC teams are required to have enough players to field 2-3 teams across the season. Previously under the SR you had 5 teams being forced into 4 squads with minimal change between squads week in week out.


See the thing about the SR or URC being better for competitiveness falls over pretty quick when you understand its a too way street. Arguing that SA is better or worse off because they left the SRP implies that AU and NZ aren't impacted and that they some how stay sharp without outside competition. All teams are worse off in the regard that they are no longer exposed to the different playing styles But When you consider RWC I would argue that being in the URC is a benefit to SA because they are far more likely to face a European team in the pool stages than AU or NZ.

43 Go to comments
S
SK 1 hour ago
Why ‘the curse of the Bambino’ is still stronger than ever at Leinster

Well Nick I have a theory why Leinster seem to lose so often at this stage of the season and it has to do with the Six Nations and what happens after that. In all of the seasons Leinster have come up short they have dominated going into the 6N. Then after that with Irish players coming out of camp they have some breathing space in the URC so they rest the lads. The SA tour almost always follows between week 12-16 of the URC. Leinster send weakened teams and have lost all games but one against the Sharks this year. They invariably ship one more in the URC regular season to an Ulster or a Munster and this year it was the Scarlets. They usually do so when starting weakened sides or teams that are half baked with a few of their internationals and their bench strength in what can be described as some kind of odd trail mix. The 6N takes its toll. The Irish lads come back battered and some come back injured. They also spend time in Irelands camp training within Irish systems with the coaches and these are slightly different to what they do at Leinster and in the last 2 seasons have been massively different on D. In the last 4-6 weeks of the URC the boys coming back from the Irish camp are not featuring. They are managed either side of the knockouts in the Champions cup. They sometimes play just 3-5 games over a 10 week period. They go from being battered and bruised to being underdone and out of whack. They lose all momentum with the losses they accrue and doubts start to set in. Suddenly sides find ways to unlock them, they make mistakes and they just cant deal with the pressure. At this time the weather also turns from cold, wet and rancid to bright and sunny. Suddenly the tempo is lifted on fields and conditions that are great for attractive rugby. Leinster start to concede points and dont put in the shift they used to. They have no momentum to do so. When will the coaching staff realise that they need to do something different at this point? They keep trying to manage the players and their systems in the same way every season when the boys come back from Ireland duty and its always the same result. A disaster in the last 3-4 weeks of the season. This year it came earlier. Maybe thats a blessing. With 2 rounds left in the URC they can focus their attentions. Perhaps thats where Leinsters attention needs to be anyway. They need to reclaim their bread and butter competition title before pushing onto the next star.

5 Go to comments
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TRENDING Leo Cullen defends his position after Leinster's Champions Cup exit Leo Cullen defends his position after Leinster's Champions Cup exit
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