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The 'mega' thing Sale love about 19-year-old prop Asher Opoku-Fordjour
By
Liam Heagney
Sale boss Alex Sanderson has given his verdict on the eye-catching run that rookie tighthead Asher Opoku-Fordjour has had in the Manchester club’s first team.
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The 19-year-old played off the bench in six of the Sharks last seven league and cup matches and with the front-rower now marked absent from the match day 23 for this Friday’s Gallagher Premiership clash at home to Bristol, his director of rugby has taken stock of the impact made this winter by his raw, late 2022 recruit.
Signed from the Wasps academy after their financial collapse, Opoku-Fordjour was loaned to National League clubs Stourbridge and Sedgley Tigers for the remainder of the 2022/23 season.
However, since emerging as an England age-grade star at the U20s Junior World Championship in Cape Town, he has jumped up the Sale pecking order in recent months.
England Test loosehead Joe Marler was immediately impressed when he briefly encountered the teenager at The Stoop in early December, commenting at the time on live TV. “There is a young tighthead that has come off the bench for Sale.
A serious talent ?
Asher Opoku-Fordjour is already making his mark on @premrugby at the age of 19 after shining for England U20 Men in the summer pic.twitter.com/xHTPlkeTh2
— England Rugby (@EnglandRugby) December 2, 2023
“He replaced James Harper in the warm-up, something like that… I have got a big thing about young, up-and-coming front-rowers. Fin Baxter for us… but this guy, (Sale’s) No18, I like the look of.”
Having debuted against Newcastle a couple of weeks before his cameo versus Quins, Opoku-Fordjour has since played as a sub against Saracens and Northampton in the league while also featuring against Stade Francais and Leinster in Europe. In that latter game, he even stabilised a penalty-leaking scrum versus Ireland prop Andrew Porter.
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Opoku-Fordjour’s recent run in the Sale team did end on a downer with him yellow carded for a penalty try in their loss to the Saints at Franklin’s Gardens last Saturday.
However, asked by RugbyPass to reflect on the youth’s entire 183-minute contribution off the bench so far for the Sharks in 2023/24 and why he was getting his first-team chance at such a young age for a tighthead, Sanderson said: “Opportunity, first and foremost. A lot of clubs would have players of his calibre that just don’t get opportunity.
“There is a perception, particularly around the front row, that you don’t earn your stripes because it’s a kind of kinesthetic skill, you can’t scrum as well as what an experienced player can because they haven’t got their head shoved up their arse enough times.
“So he has had an opportunity to go in there behind Nick Schonert because of James Harper having some injuries. He has been thrust into the big stage and has taken it, taken the bull by the horns – he has taken the opportunity with both hands. That’s not easy. It’s still not easy. He is still doing things I haven’t seen a 19-year-old do at tighthead.
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“I’m talking scrum-wise here, let alone the fact that he is so dynamic around the park. That is exceptional. We have seen it in training but it’s another thing to transfer that training performance to match day and seemingly the better players that he has played against, he has performed better as well. You know, the British (and Irish) Lions.
“The last three games previous he scrummed better than he did than against someone of his own peer group on the (Northampton) loosehead at the weekend. There are learning curves there for him as a young lad and he will still go through those peaks and troughs as he finds consistency in his own game. That is what we are after here.
Asher is on fire, your scrum is terrified ? ?
Asher Opoku-Fordjour has taken apart some of the most experienced props in World Rugby in the past few weeks, and he's only 19 years old ?#rugby #EnglandRugby #premiership pic.twitter.com/qSi4ztiaZT
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) December 24, 2023
“You can’t play him through forever (which is why he will be absent against Bristol) because it is too mentally difficult to be able to raise a game, reflect, reassess and go again as a young lad. That’s my experience from it but he has shown so far that he can compete at the highest level.”
The Sale website has Opoku-Fordjour listed as just a 111kg tighthead, something that Sanderson believes will need to increase in the long term to ensure that the rookie physically matures and thrives the way the Sharks want him to.
“He needs to put weight on because the weight as a tighthead if you are losing it or get into a bad shape, it bails you out. You can just bear down with your chest, use your weight and then it bails you out of a sticky setup or sticky engagement where it hasn’t gone to process, to plan.
“Where he is different has something to do with his core strength. Like, mega core strength. Porter couldn’t dig him out at the RDS – and that is where he is different. He has a strength that belies his size through his core which enables him to scrum well.
“Once he puts another five or six kgs on which he will do easily in time because he is still young – we don’t want to pile that weight on too quickly as you invoke injury issues and mobility issues which is where he is strong – he will be better again, so that is really exciting.
“With that journey, though, he is going to get injured and he is going to have setbacks. That is what I have got to do, help him navigate as a coach.”
"The game could die unless something dramatically changes…"
– Sale Sharks boss Alex Sanderson, with Liam Heagney ???, on the planned implementation of RFU 'hybrid' contracts in England in 2024. #EnglandRugby pic.twitter.com/B3Z8d5UCrl
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) January 3, 2024
I fear he might be another Manny Iyogun who lasted just 4 minutes on his return from nearly a year out injured.