ALEX: “WE’RE FED UP OF BEING SECOND BEST”

The off-season is always an important period in the timeline of a rugby season. For Sharks Director of Rugby Alex Sanderson it was about taking time out to spend time with his family, “decompress” and deal with the pain of a season that failed to hit the heights of his previous four at the helm.

But now all eyes are looking forward and, bolstered by a host of new faces including England internationals Courtney Lawes and Joe Marchant, Alex says he’s feeling “as invigorated as I’ve ever felt in any environment.”

And with a new game model based on adding attacking flair to physical dominance being fine-tuned with every session at Carrington, there’s every reason for Sharks fans to share his optimism that this one could be a season to remember.

“Given the time that we’ve had off, I’ve been able to rationalise and deal with the pain of last season, and then box that away through planning and getting to know new players and coaches,” Alex said. “The break was essential because this role is so intense. It’s relentless in terms of being weighed and measured and having to perform week in, week out. You need a break to be able to take a holistic view on what you need to improve on both individually and as a group.

“That takes weeks. You have to decompress, reflect and then look forward. I’ve done that with a core group of coaches and players. We’ve been in contact over the off-season and I feel like we’re more aligned than we have ever been.

“Then it comes down to the doing and our actions. It’s having a purpose and finding love of the process and being here for the last four weeks and seeing everything start to take shape has been the most cathartic bit of it all.”

“I haven’t just had to rely on my own sense of motivation, I’ve been surrounded by 150-odd people just as excited and just as motivated as me. There’s a new energy and I feel as invigorated as I’ve ever felt in any environment for what we can seriously do.

“You look around the training field and we’re stacked with brilliant players, fantastic people who are all pulling in the right direction.”

Alex says his biggest indicator of a group fully focused on success was the “incredible” condition his players returned in after their summer break.

“From day one they were here to get fitter, not to get fit,” Alex said. “That was something we were clear on at the end of last season with them – that there was a level of fitness that they had to attain for us to play in the style that we want to play going forward.

“To a man, they’ve come in phenomenally fit, and that makes our job easier because we can focus on the rugby and less on the conditioning.”

Integrating 12 new senior players, plus five new Senior Academy signings, into a group is perhaps Alex’s biggest challenge in a pre-season period that began on July 13th. But the Sharks DoR credits the recruitment of former player Tommy Taylor as Skills Performance Coach with making that job as stress-free as possible.

“Tommy is really helping drive the culture and environment,” Alex said. “He’s been meeting the lads in the off-season and that means we’re probably two or three weeks further on from an alignment and cultural perspective than we have been in previous years at this stage.

“That’s so important for us given that we have to integrate all the new players. We’ve been building this plan since the point last season where we realised we weren’t going to make the play-offs. It’s a plan by way of physical metrics and rugby progressions and it’s brilliant to look at and comprehensive in the extreme.

“But a plan doesn’t win you cups. It’s the strength of connections in what is a new group, so Tommy getting ahead of that has been a masterstroke.

“As a coaching group we need stronger connections with the players already here and we need to forge those connections with the new players. And I’m not talking about rugby here.

“I told the coaches to go and meet them for a coffee, go for a walk or a beer together and don’t take a computer. We need all of these relationships to be stronger then ever and that’s definitely helped with how hard we’re pushing each other.

“We’re doing 12-13 hour days but it genuinely doesn’t feel like work. It truly doesn’t. The lads have been the same. Their attitude has been brilliant and there hasn’t been one bit of energy sapping, even in the changing rooms, and that’s saying something because we’re putting them through it.

“If we want to be the fittest team, which we do, we have to work the hardest.”

“For the new lads, we wanted to talk to them about what playing for this club and what being an honorary northerner means. We wanted to show them where we want to evolve our game model. And for some of the existing players, that means giving them an awakening about where they need to evolve and improve.”

The common theme among many of the new signings has been experience with Lawes, Marchant, and Welsh duo Tomas Francis and Nicky Smith boasting almost 300 caps between them alone. And according to Alex, making sure new arrivals had the right character and leadership skills was a key part of the recruitment process.

“I was just talking to Tomas Francis and he said he’s feeling really settled, and that it was so easy to feel that way because of how welcome and accommodating the club and group is,” he said. “I told him that he’s one of those people and he’s only getting back what he’s put in.

“It would have been really easy for Courtney Lawes, Joe Marchant, Tomas Francis, guys like that with loads of experience, to come and just keep their heads down and get on with the job. They know what works for them.

“It’s much harder, in a new environment, to come in and make yourself vulnerable. To a man, they’ve all stood up and put themselves out there. Courtney has talked a lot in meetings about game prep and just think how much our young forwards will take from that.

“They could have just got their feet under the table but they haven’t. They’ve stood on top of the table and they’ve led from the front.”

So back to that game model and what Sharks fans can expect from their team on the pitch this season.

“The game is shifting and the laws are benefiting teams that try and keep possession,” Alex added. “The ball is in play more and there are more tries being scored in every league, particularly from transition. So everyone is leaning into that style of play.

“For us, it’s about adding that attacking style to our physicality and to our defensive pride and getting back to some of the stuff we’re known for and take pride in, like what we do when we don’t have the ball.

“We want to play faster, for longer and out-work teams.”

“We want our decision-making to be better and that comes down to the experience we’ve brought in. We want to play at speed with execution under pressure and that comes down to international level talent and quality, which is what we have recruited.

“We’re going to run more, play more and play right to the edge – both in terms of our skillset and how we play to 82, 83 minutes and beyond, and we’re going to be relentlessly dominant. We’ve brought in good characters but we’ve also brought in big men who like to bang, none more so than Elia Canakaivata.

“The bombs have already been flying in training and he’s going to do some damage this season. We feel like we have a good mix of all of that this season, but we’re all winners in pre-season aren’t we?

“It’s been a hell of a start for us and I genuinely believe that there is no more exciting time to get behind a Sale Sharks team. We’ve got a brilliant group of homegrown players and we’ve added a lot of international experience.

“We know there is a bit of magic and sometimes a bit of luck needed to win a cup, but this is the best time to back us. We’re fed up of being second best.”