The 'sensitive' way red-carded Manu Tuilagi has reacted to his ban

Sale boss Alex Sanderson has provided an update on how Manu Tuilagi is coping with the ban he copped on Tuesday at a disciplinary hearing following last Saturday’s red card. The midfielder was sent-off at Franklin’s Gardens just 14 minutes into the Sharks’ Gallagher Premiership loss versus Northampton.

Having been omitted from the England match day squad for both of the early games in the Guinness Six Nations against Scotland and Italy, Tuilagi had returned to Sale in the hope of putting in an impressive performance to improve his selection prospects ahead of the round three Test match away to Wales.

His red card for foul use of his forearm on Tommy Freeman shattered that ambition, however, and it left Tuilagi nursing a four-game ban that will be reduced to three if he successfully completes the World Rugby coaching intervention programme.

That would free him up for England squad selection for the final round game against Ireland, but the likelihood is that Tuilagi won’t be picked by Steven Borthwick and won’t play again until Sale take on Cardiff in Wales on April 1. That would be quite a considerable six-week layoff for a player with the ambition of playing for England at the Rugby World Cup later this year.

“He is still upset,” said Sanderson when asked about Tuilagi at the Sale media briefing ahead of this Sunday’s Premiership trip to Exeter. “The situation he put the team in at the weekend, he was repentful for – and repentful is a very sensitive word. It wasn’t just sorry. It was like, ‘I’m going to make this up to you’.

“Obviously, if you get a red you have to go through due process and get a further sanction. That happened. The meeting that we had for the nature of them – and I have sat in a few – was a good one if there is such a thing. It was a mid-range and he got two weeks off for mitigating good behaviour, historic good behaviour. Another week for coaching intervention so he is banned for three weeks which means he will miss this run and he will be good to go for the European Challenge Cup, the Cardiff game.”

Sale are currently second in the Premiership with hopes of going on to secure a home semi-final at the end of a season that could be the last for Tuilagi at the Manchester club as his future for the 2023/24 season remains unresolved amid speculation that he will leave for the Top 14.

“Still trying to find a way,” said Sanderson regarding the Sale contract extension situation with Tuilagi. “We are constantly having conversations with the ever-changing, shifting climate that is the salary cap and the dispensation. It’s proving to be very difficult at the moment, as I have said in the past.”