The 19-stone prop with the second highest Sale squad standing jump

Alex Sanderson has explained why he quickly tore up his plan to send rookie loosehead Tumy Onasanya out on loan to the Championship and instead include him on the Sale bench for Sunday’s new Gallagher Premiership season opener.

A former Warrington Wolves academy member who crossed codes to become an England U18 and U20s union pick, Onasanya was set to join Coventry for the start of their Championship campaign. However, an injury to Ross Harrison resulted in Sanderson ditching that arrangement and the 22-year-old front-rower will instead feature as a Sharks replacement when Quins visit Salford.

“We had a plan to put him on loan to Coventry to get some more games under his belt and then Ross Harrison gets injured, snaps a ligament off the back of his knee, the top of his soleus, and Tumy plays both warm-up games, Caldy and Newcastle, and plays really well in them.

“Tumy has the second highest standing jump of the whole squad. Not bad is it for a 19-stoner? The only person to usurp him this year was Tye Raymont, who is a 20-stone prop. So we have got two of our pack, our most powerful athletes, in the front row on either side.

“Tumy uses that power in his attack. He has got a brilliant left-foot step and the only thing bigger than that is his smile I guess. He is an energy around the place. I said, ‘Look, we need to keep you close because you are close’ because of the form he is on and the injury at loosehead… the next 10 weeks look really bright for him.”

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Sanderson has also spoken about what he expects now from Asher Opoku-Fordjour now that he is back at the Manchester club as a World Rugby U20 Championship winner. The youngster packed down for Mark Mapletoft’s side in South Africa at loosehead, but he has been named at tighthead – the position Sale mostly pick him in – for Sunday’s Premiership opener.

“Sometimes they achieve great success when they are U20s or they have a good season and they lack a little bit of motivation or intensity the season after. That’s not been the case with him – he looks better.

“He has just come back in, rolled into it and he looks stronger, more physical, moving better than what he was. So everything that we had hoped he would be because of the physical athlete he is he has grown into at the rate we would like him to grow in to if not ahead of where we predicted him to be so take that from what you will in terms of selection moving forward.

“He can play both sides, we want to give him that option. England think loosehead, we think tighthead but why limit him at this point in his career? He’s a lovely bloke, as you know. He is quite humble in how he talks, and he has got a good look about himself which is important.

“Adidas are knocking on the door because he is a good bastion for the modern game, like a tighthead that can run like a winger but looks cool in a pair of Adidas sneaks!”

"At Stormers there was a loosehead I just couldn’t figure out."

– INTERVIEW: Asher Opoku-Fordjour, with Liam Heagney ??? at the U20 Championship in Cape Town, on the art of scrummaging. #WorldRugbyU20s #EnglandRugby #RSAvENG #rugby

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— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) July 7, 2024