ALEX SANDERSON MEDIA SESSION 14/10/2025

GEORGE FORD’S NEW CONTRACT

“I have been pleased for a while as we have known for a while. He is fundamental and pivotal to this club moving forwards to have him at the helm for everything he is about; the passion, common sense, how concise he is and how he communicates, where he is from, what he wants to do, where he wants to take this group, how driven he is. It is bigger than just how brilliant he is on the field. He is a motivational force for me as a coach, not just the players he plays with. A massive, massive show of intent from him for the direction the club is going in, not just this season but the next two or three at least, hopefully forever. Clubs have money, resources, all of them do, they all have plans to win. It is the players who understand the direction a club is moving in and for him, at the stage of his career and the form he is in, to back this club shows that we must be doing something right. Him backing us shows we are on the right path.

“I do [still think he is getting better]. The fact that this season he has probably had more adversity barring his career-threatening injury than he has ever had in terms of selection and yet he has got better shows where his headspace is and his drive to continuously improve. The game evolves, teams get better, physically the athletes improve and people like Fordy who have been around a long time have to keep evolving and growing otherwise you will be left behind. That is what is so great about him. If he has 100 caps and he says there is still room to grow then it makes you to turn to yourself and I need to do better. That is catching in the environment and contagious. He is entrenched within our methodology, he is one of the first people I ring up on a Sunday. I am very lucky to have a man like him in my corner. When you are aligned there is no better feeling. We have to challenge him and he wants to get better. His leadership has grown and his ability to thin slice has got better in his time here but he has always led by example. There is only one George Ford! You might win a game by 10/15 more points with a Marcus Smith but you will definitely lose fewer games with George Ford.”

ROB DU PREEZ’S EXIT

“Last summer Racing suddenly came up with £1.2 million in their salary cap with Owen Farrell returning to Saracens and some of that they wanted to spend on Rob so they offered us a transfer fee, which was really attractive to Rob at this stage of his career given the fact that England is his second home. It is not like it is a few hundred grand more, with tax benefits it was more than twice as much as we could offer him. We said to him we could make it happen if it was on his radar and he wanted it but it cannot be to the detriment of the club. Racing said they would give us a week yet he was still under contract and they gave us a week! Rob was unbelievably brilliant. We interviewed and scouted people around the world, interviewed what we thought were the best six to ten centres who could play Rob’s role. We came very close to signing one but it did not work out but Rob said it was no problem. There was no sign that he was bitter or missed an opportunity.

“On the back of that we offered him an extension. He is a day away from signing that and I believe him on this because he has been very transparent with the whole process, and then Bayonne come in. Within 24 hours he said he had spoken with his wife and said it was something he wanted to do for his family, potentially as a last contract. Now is a different scenario, now we have time to prepare and plan to get someone in whereas within a week at the back end of last season you haven’t. I am gutted he is going and would have loved for him to stay but there was no way we could go to that level and offer that money and life experience. With all good will let’s get this done and get this done quickly because I did not want the white noise around. Bayonne then announced just a pre-contract, they have not even signed the contract. It came out super quick before I managed to speak to our media team, who reacted really well, and hence why it was a surprise. It is for the right reasons for Rob and it gives us time to recruit in that area, which we will.

“We are looking for an out-and-out 13. That is why Rob is so sought after and highly valued financially because he plays so many roles. We feel moving forward we can at least get cover for 10, for Fordy, and get a specialist 13 as well and we can as we have planning for that and money in the cap. We have been meeting people five/ six weeks ago and been meeting people in the event Rob might go because we were aware of conversations. You always have to have a contingency because you do not know the minds of men. I would like to think we are honest and know what they are thinking if they have options. If we have options we would let them know. There are a lot of meetings going on behind the scenes between clubs and players at the moment, things will start to fall into place around the autumn internationals as they do.”

SPEAKING TO POTENTIAL SIGNINGS

“Ideally face-to-face in person, if not via Zoom, usually more than once and then follow-up conversations with players who know them and phone calls with the player once you have had that initial long conversation. All the stat analysis will get done before. It is then on character, purpose, drive, whether they will fit, what they want out of the next few years. Then it is more about nuts and bolts and follow-ups. I have got a conversation tonight [Tuesday 14^th October] and then one tomorrow, they will probably last an hour.”

INJURY UPDATE

Curry twins- Ben has had as successful operation and now in healing process, could be 3 to 4 weeks or 5 to 6 weeks, Ben was the one to say he needed the operation to happen to allow him to perform at his best and it was very well-handled in cooperation with England, this should clear him up going forward, difficult to cope with both physically and mentally, Tom doing return-to-contact training and will be available at some point during the November internationals

Dan du Preez and Jacques Vermeulen- close but not for this weekend, looking to come back for Leicester

Rekeiti Ma’asi-White (hip pointer)- up for selection, looking good

OTHER NEWS

Byron McGuigan- certain things have been agreed in principle with England as to what it could look like, a few road blocks to get past

Players probably get offered twice as much in Japan, a third more potentially from R360, no different to those who go to France when you add in tax breaks

Expecting a “ferociously intense” Saracens who will be very physical, massive challenge, Al feels it is a bigger challenge than Bath away a few weeks ago with the players Saracens have coming back in, game will be won and lost on how proactive you are in transition