Sale Sharks – Page 7 – an old grey dog

I don’t know about you, but I’m still feeling pretty chipper off the back of our most successful season since 2006. It was a great ride, culminating in a fabulous weekend for the Premiership final and now it’s time to do it all again. What’s in store for next season?

Content warning: ranting.

I’m going through changes*…

I haven’t found a definitive list of ins and outs, yet, so this section will be hopelessly incomplete. I do know, though, that, in terms of players released versus players brought in from outside, we have massively reduced the squad this year. Something of the order of thirteen out, five in, I believe.

I don’t know to what extent the deficit will be made up by guys coming up from the academy but I hope that’s the plan: I like the idea that we’re building a club from within. A team of guys who’ve come through the system; who, by the time they’re breaking into the first team, have already spent several years in the company of the established players. Add a teaspoon of outside spice to liven up the mixture and I think you’ve got something that’s effective, productive and sustainable.

The bulk of the departures have been what you might call ‘fringe’ players: guys on the edge of first-team selection but who, for whatever reason, never managed to achieve consistency there. That’s not to denigrate their contribution or talent, it’s just to point out that there has actually been little change in the core first-team squad, so we have a lot of continuity going into next season.

Of all the departures, I think we might miss Coenie the most. Losing Akker is significant and probably the biggest blow in terms of actual gameplay, but we’ve replaced him with a Lion, fergoodnessake, so the impact on-field shouldn’t be felt as keenly. But losing Coenie without replacing him leaves us, I think, a bit short at tighthead. James Harper and Cal Ford are fantastic prospects and at least one of them will be first choice in a couple of years; but not quite yet. We’re one down and, whilst Joe Jones is more than capable in that position, I’d like to see some gnarly old bugger who’s been around the block a couple of times in the mix.

Talking of gnarly old buggers: Agustín Creevy at hooker. LCD might be the big name, headline signing, but Creevy is a wily old sod, and I think picking him up was an act of genius, not least for the good it will do for the likes of Ethan Caine and the academy hookers coming through the ranks.

The back row I’m not worried about, despite Jonno’s retirement. I suspect his presence will be missed around the club but, on the field, we have the Currys and the du Preez’s as well as some decent understudies coming through. I’m very interested to see van Rhyn play, though.

The backs are pretty much business as usual: Veianu in for Byron but otherwise as you were. I’m definitely looking forward to the battle for ownership of the number nine shirt.

Premiership

I sometimes wonder if the ‘great and the good’ of the English game are actually interested in marketing it as a product. Because, if they are, they’ve got a funny way of demonstrating it. Eight rounds crammed in between 13th October and 3rd December, then the remaining ten rounds between the end of December and sometime in May. We will get, if we’re lucky, one home game a month from January.

If you include the Prem Cup, we have the opportunity to get bums on seats regularly and frequently between September and Christmas. A whole slew of (possibly new) punters getting a game every other week and getting used to coming down on the regular.

And then what? “Yeah, well, we’ll let you know when the next one is. And, by the way, there’s going to be a huge gap in fixtures whilst the big boys run around on telly.”

Look, I know it’s a World Cup year and that throws a spanner in the works. I mean, kudos for delaying the start of the Premiership until after the group stages, so we’ll at least have our England players back, and I appreciate that using the Prem Cup to fill that gap makes it more difficult to use it to fill the Six Nations period, but to have nothing going on? I can imagine all the club owners tearing their hair out wondering how they’re going to convert casual spectators into the sort of idiots that will write frothing rants about the state of the game but will still turn up in all weathers.

And breathe…

As far as Sale’s prospects for this season, I’m going with the Wasps fan I was chatting to in the bog after the final: “You’ll be back next year and you’ll probably win it”. There’s been a lot of squad shuffling around the league, especially following the demise of London Irish, but I think we can handle any of the other teams, even Saracens. Looking forward to another trip to Twickenham in June.

Europe

Coming second in the Premiership was supposed to give us a more favourable draw in the Champions’ Cup: at least that’s how the seeding system has worked for the past couple of years.

But the past is gone, it’s now the Century of the Fruitbat, South Africa is part of Europe and a simple cup competition becomes an exercise in advanced combinatorics that would have Euler reaching for his abacus^†.

The upshot of this is that, far from being able to plan a nice trip to, say, Italy, we find ourselves in a group of death, playing matches home or away, instead of home and away. I mean, you console yourself with the thought that at least we should get a nice trip to Paris or La Rochelle but…

… You’d be mistaken. See, when you’ve got three pairs and the members of each pair play the other pairs, then only two of the pairs can have a home and away from each of the pairs they play. One of the pairs has to play two home against one and two away against the other (see? I said it got a bit mathsy). As it is, it’s the Premiership pair (us and Leicester) who get two homes and two aways. And – and it’s at this point I just accept that the universe hates us – it’s Leicester who get the jollies in France.

I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m always taken aback by the ability of organising committees — at all levels, from government down to village fêtes — to make a right dog’s breakfast of almost anything. It must be the need to preserve their own relevance.

Pre-pandemic, we had a perfectly workable system in which we got three away trips, in October, December and January. It was simple, easy to understand and the fans loved it. Then, with the pandemic restrictions and abbreviated seasons, it got reduced to only four league games and an entirely unnecessary “round of 16”. OK, we put up with it, but the return to normality could have been accompanied by a return to the previous – working, well-liked – system. OK, maybe you keep the existing one this year because of the World Cup, but go back to the old way next season.

But, no. Can’t have that. Let’s just make a complete pig’s ear of it by keeping all the bad bits of the pandemic system and bringing in none of the good bits of the old one.

I despair. At least there’s a weekend in Dublin to look forward to…

Sorry, it appears the long, rugby-free weeks of summer have had an adverse effect on my tolerance for pillocks. I think it’s because I’ve been watching cricket and the way that’s being marketed (especially the Hundred) makes me wonder why rugby can’t market itself similarly. You come from that to the way the two main club rugby competitions are run and you can end up screaming “Where are the grown-ups?” into the void…

Not long to go now, though: back into the groove, regain some equilibrium and look forward to kicking on from last season and building something special here.

* Spot the Black Sabbath fans: they heard Ozzy sing that line.
† One for the geeks, sorry (not sorry).