POTENTIAL INTEREST IN WASPS PLAYERS
“We have some interest, we have a little bit of room (in the cap). We are looking at a couple of lads, meeting a few on Friday.”
INTEREST IN AUSTRALIAN INTERNATIONAL TEVITA KURIDRANI
“Only speculation. He is one of those players who would bolster our squad during the Autumn Internationals and potentially the Six Nations, whilst we wait for Connor Doherty to regain fitness from a ruptured Achilles. But he has placed himself out of our price range and therein lies the problem.”
IMAGE OF THE PREMIERSHIP AT THE MOMENT
“The product has been really good. The level of rugby and how entertaining the games are, it has probably been the best start to a Premiership campaign than there has been for a few years. Clearly there is something wrong with the feasibility of the model as it stands. So with all this short-term immense pain hopefully there is going to be something productive that comes out of it by way of opportunity and making sure that clubs can stay alive and produce a spectacle. If that is fewer teams then they will make it so. I understand the reasons why they are saying it as well; fewer teams, fewer games, get international players back for more of those games. Clubs need revenues and multiple streams of it as well.”
CONVERSATIONS WITH OWNER SIMON ORANGE
“I speak to Simon Orange regularly, I was on the phone to him last night at 8.30pm. He stressed the point this morning that if there was room in the cap and we needed players for injury dispensation then we should spend that money on those players. So there is reinforcement enough that the resources and investment are still here. The financial world is not in a good place. A lot of these owners are people who have a lot of money invested in the financial world. Most clubs are looking for further investment to help their security. I have been given every assurance that as a club we are strong and they (the owners) are invested. I know for a fact that Simon Orange has written the club into his will which goes to show you how invested they are till death and then beyond. We are very lucky in that sense.”
LATEST ON AKKER VAN DER MERWE INJURY
“Not as devastating as what I thought it was straight after the game, far from it. Probably as good a result as you could get given the fact that he was stretchered off. We thought his knee and his ankle had gone. It is probably a Grade 1 sindesmosis on his ankle. He has just gone for a little injection in one of his ligaments to thicken that up. 4 weeks at the most. He has been great for us. That is why we stuck him on the bench (on Friday night) to freshen up a little bit on a short turnaround. He is so strong, he gets himself into those positions and his joints just can’t take the strain. Such a powerful unit and it was probably because he was so fresh and active in the breakdowns that he got himself in there a few times when normally he would have just bounced out and left it. But because he was so quick and eager he was sticking his head into everything and came off with that minor injury thankfully.”
EXPLANATION OF MEDICAL DISPENSATION MONEY
“It has to be passed by the salary cap manager. If you get an injury and it is beyond 12 weeks you are able to apply for injury dispensation and that is for a like for like player. Salaries are in and around what that player was worth. The standard of the players has to comparable; you can’t lose an academy player and get a 70-cap Kuridrani.”
SALE’S ATTACK GOING UNDER RADAR
“I am quite happy to fly under the radar, let them look at the defence. I think they (the attack) have been great, we are still not quite the transitional team or the team that is able to throw those lightning bolts like Harlequins do. They can really strike fast and that is what the stats suggest. They have the most tries from first phase, the most tries from turnovers and the most turnovers from jackals. They are coached really well for how they execute their gameplan. Whereas we go about it a bit differently, but we have evolved that side of the game this season which has probably spurred us on and that is why we found ourselves where we are in the league at the moment. The points difference shows we are doing something right.
IMPACT OF JOE CARPENTER
“I have been watching, hoping and crossing my fingers for him for the last 18 months since I have been here that he gets a break and he is managing to do what he is doing on the training field. Through injury he hasn’t had that. So we are seeing a real player on our hands. He dropped a couple of balls on Friday where he got the distance wrong but it’s the first two balls I have seen him drop over the last 8 weeks so I know that is the exception not the norm. The rest of it was still there; his tenacity, timing onto the ball and the lad is truly happy when he gets across the whitewash. You can see it. They are all his mates, he lives with Tom Roebuck, same age as Raffi (Quirke), Bevan (Rodd), Arron Reed. He is loving it at the moment. He is giving us all a buzz with his performances.”
RETURN OF RAFFI QUIRKE FROM INJURY
“I am surprised at how good and quickly he has come back, how he hasn’t chased things in game. Seemingly he has waited for the opportunity, it is so easy for a young lad to want to impress, told he had 3 games by Eddie Jones (to get in the England squad). And yet for him to wait for his opportunities to attack and chase everything in defence, he has been mega. He is still as energetic and enthusiastic around the place like a kid at Christmas. Still a bit of a competition winner around the place! He talks with a seniority and maturity that he didn’t have last year in the meetings, he is leading well in meetings. I have been deliberately backing off and letting him get on with it. Like I say he has been surprising me in all the areas he has worked hard on. We sent him away to Australia for a personal development trip where he met up with a lot of people from the Rugby League clubs out there and he has made some decent friends who he has caught up with, guys who played for Samoa and Penrith. That has given him some perspective, he took some things from those lads. We have been strict on his loading on when he did come back. He came back 4 weeks after we wanted him back because of a few hiccups. Any player could have got frustrated with that and said they needed to get back playing, but he understood he needed to be right so that is a sign of maturity. It’s been quite a long road from his operation to now and if you look at all the things he has done you would probably I’m not that surprised when you get to the point that he is performing as well as he has. It is because he has worked for it. He is just quite a special player.”
CONFIDENCE WITHIN THE SQUAD
“It’s at half-time, in the breaks. We are hearing and feeling it more. 16-12 down at the half against Leicester and not really played that well. Sometimes you think they are going to need a fix or some motivation. The players were so collected. It’s only us beating us here. We know what we need to do and the players had the gameplan, we just needed that time to collaborate and get a bit more clarity. That is all we needed and we are finding that more and more. We have won the majority if not all of the second halves this season. Again which shows that kind of composure that if we stick to our guns, understand what is working for us and what the game model looks like it will ultimately come good. There is that belief there. Where you need to see it isn’t when it is easy to have all that bluster. It is in the dark times when you are tired and you are losing. We are seeing that more now.”
OTHER NEWS
Manu fit for this weekend, probably could have played last week against Irish if it was a cup final but decision taken not to risk him with minor back strain
Doesn’t see RFU going down route of central contracts
Sad about situations at Wasps and Worcester, grateful for what he has at Sale
The two Toms, Tom O’Flaherty and Tom Roebuck, complementing each other nicely on the wings
The strong work the club does on the mental health side of things, believes Sale probably do more in the aspect that any other Premiership club, support for players and the staff, mental resilience/ work on the mental side of things is the area where you can probably make the biggest gains
True measure of strength in depth of squad will be put to the measure over the coming weeks
Set to be a link-up with Argentina next week for live until training, Kangaroos also around, link-up with Caldy, Doncaster come up for training, High Performance Director at Melbourne Storm was in all of last week, Wakefield Coach in tomorrow (Wednesday 19th October), open environment at Sale, looking to learn from different environments
Review of schedule coming up for post-Christmas, so that clubs don’t go too long without playing
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