Harlequins’ Twickenham tie against Gloucester will attract the biggest crowd this weekend, with more than 75,000 tickets sold, but Sale’s visit to Northampton at a sold-out Franklin’s Gardens is perhaps the most fascinating fixture in the final Premiership round of 2023.
The title-chasing Sharks scored a cathartic victory against Saracens, the side that denied them in last season’s final, three days before Christmas and their director of rugby, Alex Sanderson, has stated his determination to go one better next summer. “We want to get back there,” he said. “We’ve had a taste, but I want more than a taste now.”
The winner of Sale’s meeting with in-form Saints will hit the summit of a fiercely competitive table, at least until Johann van Graan’s Bath, table-toppers over Christmas, go searching for victory at Leicester on Sunday.
Phil Dowson’s Northampton are on a five-match winning streak having beaten Gloucester, Saracens and Harlequins domestically, along with Glasgow Warriors and Toulon in the Champions Cup in recent weeks.
After Exeter’s victory at Bristol on Friday, the Chiefs and Sale have both won seven matches – Bath and Saints have won six – and Sanderson said the prop, Ross Harrison, has been integral to their buoyant form in the first half of the campaign.
The Sharks’ scrum dominance was a significant part of that 22-20 win against Sarries and Sanderson said he appointed the front-rower, who starts on Saturday alongside hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie and prop Nick Schonert, as his “captain of energy”.
“We’ve been focusing quite a lot on energy exchanges,” said Sanderson, the contemplative coach who installed a “mind gym” for his players at the Sharks’ HQ. “There’s been quite wide research done into how you’re able to maintain energy, and what those energy exchanges look like. They come in many different forms but I’ve made him captain of that. I said: ‘Can you be captain of energy?’ and he’s been driving it. It helps him because it keeps him in the game and in the moment.”
Fittingly perhaps, Harrison cites “sleeping” as his main interest outside rugby, and anyone tempted to dismiss his title as meaningless psychobabble would do well to consider Sale’s upward curve under Sanderson. Consider the relentless performances that meld intense physicality with ruthless attack and defence – not to mention that figure in this season’s “W” column – and it would be no surprise to see them back at Twickenham next June.
Never one to shirk responsibility, Sanderson said motivating his squad for the demanding date with Northampton, who make eight changes to their XV, is down to him.
“It’s not on them to get motivated every week, is it?” he said. “In the olden days it was like, right: we’ll give you clarity, we’ll give you game model, we’ll coach you – but it’s up to you to get your mentality right. I don’t believe that. I think that’s a cop-out from coaches not taking responsibility. What we’re trying to do is give them the mental tools, the skillset to be able to arm themselves.”
Neither was Sanderson slow to talk up Saturday’s opponents, for whom Alex Coles makes his 100th appearance at lock. “Northampton are the in-form side in Europe and the Premiership, aren’t they?” he said. “There’s a lot of talk about their increased physicality, which is great for a team that prides themselves, as we do, on physicality. That’s a head-to-head we’re looking forward to. We’ve looked at this point, halfway through the season, to set our intent for the new year. And that, to some degree, makes this occasion bigger than the game.”
For Gloucester and their director of rugby George Skivington, meanwhile, life has been more difficult over the past 12 months leading up to Saturday evening’s box-office date with Quins. They suffered a narrow home defeat by the Saints before Christmas and sit second-bottom with two victories.
“I’ll be honest with you, 2023’s been a painful year,” Skivington said having named a rotated front row of Jamal Ford-Robinson, George McGuigan and Kirill Gotovtsev to face Harlequins. “There’s been some good moments but not so much in the Premiership.”
With Argentina’s Santi Carreras at full-back, Louis Rees-Zammit of Wales on the wing and Scotland’s Adam Hastings orchestrating matters at fly-half, the Cherry and Whites do not lack attacking quality. “This is probably the first moment in 2023 when we’ve got about 75%-plus of our squad fit,” Skivington said. “No excuses, but it’s not been that enjoyable a year.”
On the team’s targets for 2024, he said: “We need to re-anchor and get our identity back. Minimum, we don’t want to be questioned on our ‘D’ and our work rate. Our objective has to be to get back to that fierce side we know we are.”
