ALEX SANDERSON MEDIA SESSION 14/12/2022

SATISFACTION AT ULSTER WIN

“A complete performance. They will rue the chances they missed I’m sure. We probably caught them a bit cold with their travel troubles due to Manchester Airport being snowed under. But we got a lot right. I said going into the week that it was as good as we have felt physically and mentally at this point in the season. So it is always nice when the performance backs up your feeling at the weekend.”

THE WORK OF DEFENCE COACH MIKE FORSHAW

“He is the best defence coach I have worked with, definitely. The England defence coach job is probably going to be up for grabs in the coming months and I want to keep him firmly rooted up north. He is brilliant. I will wax-lyrical about him because he deserves it. Everyone has always got a system by way you go here and there and who you set first and your spacing around your first two or three defenders. They base it on line speed and physicality. That’s all well and good but the intent that he is able to convey to the players, sometimes not through a verbal eloquence, but just sheer charisma. I reckon the players believe he would do it himself and he would. He is Iron Mike, granite. He is a bit of a force of nature I have to say and it comes out in the players’ actions. He epitomises the defensive intent that we possess within this organisation.”

STATE OF MANU TUILAGI

“External and internal stitches. That’s a 12-day mandatory layoff as per HIA protocols. I think he needs it; he was pretty shook up even though he would never admit it. I saw him at half-time and after the game after he got stitched. I asked him how he was and he said he was no prettier! He’s still got a sense of humour which is good. He will be fine, he will be back in training next week. He has got 5 days of doing nothing and then back in training. We will see where he is at for Newcastle. It was significant enough to warrant 5 days of doing nothing and then a return to play in line with the return to play protocol. It puts his availability for the Newcastle game in question. There are other things at play here with regards to Manu for example 4G pitches. We will look at all his markers both physical and mental before we make that decision.”

VIEWS ON MANU TUILAGI/ ANDREW WARWICK INCIDENT- VERY PHILOSOPHICAL ABOUT IT

“It probably should frustrate me more than it does. I truly believe they have got the intent right on looking after the ball-carrier. But forever there have been inconsistencies in the ruling on what the systematic decision-making process is on that. As such, when it happens, I am quite far removed from it because the decision is so far out of my control, and I have been witness to that in the past, that I am able to shelve it pretty quickly. I am not that aloof that it doesn’t matter, of course it does matter and everything has a consequence but that is the nature of the game and I think the intent is right. I have seen them go both ways. If that would frustrate me, what it would have meant is I would be still frustrated by Nick Schonert’s red card against Bath at the start of the season or his ban last season. If you carry those things for so long you become bitter and twisted and it’s always someone else’s fault. As a group of coaches and an organisation we actively work on just being able to shelve stuff we can’t control.

“I think this type of conversation is not good for rugby. Even Mathieu Raynal, who is a very good referee, when he was talking to Tom Curry, Bevan Rodd and Akker van der Merwe pre-game about the breakdown, they get it wrong. He is not floorless, he understands he is sometimes going to get it wrong hence why we have citing officials and TMO’s to rectify some of those mistakes. I still believe that he, all the other referees and World Rugby are extremely conscious on the care of players in regards to concussions and head injuries. Overly so sometimes hence why we are having this debate now. There is need for it not to dominate the game which it is doing clearly but also a higher purpose to look after the player which I think everyone is trying to do.”

EXCITEMENT OF PLAYING TOULOUSE THIS WEEKEND

“There are lots of great matchups. They have got the best attack in the Top 14. We have the best defence in the Premiership at the moment. They have got the most offloads, we have the most dominant collisions. Those two things negate each other. There is their size, weight and power of the set piece with some of the great individuals they have. We feel like one of our strengths is the dominance we have in through our scrum and maul. There is another exiting challenge facing us this weekend. And then there is going there. You never want to get overshadowed by the occasion or overwhelmed by it. We want them to relish and love it. We have had a few things thrown at us this weekend with the weather. We have had to go off-site and train at Burnage Rugby Club with a 4G pitch which quickens training up so it feels more frenetic as the ball is quicker on a 4G. We also got the stadium guy who does all the music with deafening noise so we couldn’t hear ourselves think. It helped them understand the feeling going into a game like this. We have tried to immerse ourselves in an occasion that is probably bigger than we are used to. Whether or not it transfers we will see on Sunday. But we have an understanding of what we are going into. The feel of it you can’t grasp until you are actually there on the middle of the pitch in front of a sell-out crowd. It’s a brilliant match-up against the best team in the Top 14 with some of the best players in the world. We are up for it.”

“The coaches have been really good in not over-analysing Toulouse. It is too easy to hype them and their strengths up. It can put a few doubts in your own players’ minds. We have focused on how we are able to stop them performing and playing on the front foot where they are super-dangerous. These are quite generic things but with other teams you can recover. With this team you won’t. A lot of the focus has been on our ability to prevent them from getting on the front foot. So the focus has come back on us and our strengths.

JOE SIMPSON’S IMMINENT RETIREMENT

“We wouldn’t be in the place we are now. In terms of some of the performances we have been able to bring him on and he has added, not just closed out games to those last-quarter performances we have had. We wouldn’t have had those without him. Six clubs, 17 years, nearly 300 appearances. That’s what he adds from a rugby perspective and he has been embraced and loved in every single one of those scenarios. Little do most people know he has got a young family down in Cheltenham; a 1-year old daughter and super-intelligent wife. So he is making the trip twice a week, the sacrifice he has made to finish his career where he is at shows the measure of the man he is.

“The lad know the sacrifices he has made to be with us and to contribute. That has been reciprocated as they do a lot for him. He is very much appreciated and valued not just to us but to the game in general because his contribution over the last 17 years has been exceptional to be where he is when he is finishing and where he has been for the majority of his career which is right at the top. Every young player should take a leaf out of his book in terms of not just having a top-level professional career but a happy life and a well-rounded career both on and off the field.”

GUS WARR

“He has been the eternal underdog. He got a contract as a second choice back in the Academy and wasn’t really recognised until he was 18. Then in my first 6 months here I asked him to get some game-time and he went on loan to Doncaster. Gus has found his way to where he is through perpetually being under the radar. I think he has developed a super skill in motivating himself by proving people wrong. There is no more of an underdog fairytale story than having him play the world’s best scrum-half in Antoine Dupont, who got voted World Player of the Year a couple of years ago, although you might say Faf is. He is really excited by the challenge. We just had him in the office learning some French phrases which could throw Dupont off with some GSCE French.”

VISIT OF MARTIN HIBBERT THIS WEEK

“We had Martin Hibbert come down. Him and his daughter were the only survivors within a 30-foot radius of the Manchester Arena bombing at the Ariana Grande concert in 2017.

“We are the first rugby team he has spoken to, he has spoken to a couple of football teams. He is on his way to raising a million pounds for support for back and spinal injuries. These things are always intentional for a reason. You ask him to come in and he says yes and he comes in, I then felt so shallow for the reason we asked him to come in because what he has been through makes our cause seem inconsequential. But in the bigger picture he is a living and breathing example of what resilience is. To face adversity and how to reframe your reality. Sport is a microcosm of that. He has done it, he lives it and continues to climb mountains, it’s ridiculous.

“Even if you take a little bit out of that story and use it for yourself, for me personally it made me appreciate my life situation and where I am at with my own family. I will go home and cuddle my wife tonight and play with my son because I am truly lucky. It’s that sense of happiness and gratitude is good practice for the resilience side of things that we are going to need on Sunday.”

INJURY LATEST:

Tom Roebuck a few weeks away

Ben Curry back available this weekend

George Ford and Raffi Quirke set to be fit mid-January

Joe Carpenter a doubt with hamstring tightness, if he is fit he will start, if he is not fit he won’t play, will give him as long as possible to be fit

Jason Woodward carrying a niggle

Luke James a couple of weeks off being fit