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An ancient Japanese phrase has Sale believing they can win Europe

(Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images for Sale Sharks)

Alex Sanderson has likened his Sale team to the ancient Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi. Heading into this Saturday’s Heineken Champions Cup round of 16 encounter with Bristol, the Sharks wouldn’t jump off the page as a favourite to go on and lift the title next month in Marseille. However, Sanderson isn’t writing off his Sale charges, claiming that it’s their imperfection that gives them every chance of getting past Bristol over two legs and striding forward into a quarter-final where they would most likely be away to the hugely fancied Racing 92. 

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Sale have slipped off the payoff qualification pace in recent weeks in the Gallagher Premiership, winning just one of their last four outings, but Sanderson embarked down a Japanese philosophical rabbit hole at his media briefing this week to explain why he has every faith that his Sharks can deliver despite their inconsistencies. 

“What is the point in being in it if you don’t think you can go all the way? These boys have never turned up just to make up numbers… but therein lies the challenge and I’m smiling about it now,” insisted Sanderson, promising that Sale would be better versus Bristol in Europe than they were in last week’s league defeat to Saracens.  

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Will Skelton on the Ronan O’Gara slap and Australia vs England | Le French Rugby Podcast | Episode 24

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      Will Skelton on the Ronan O’Gara slap and Australia vs England | Le French Rugby Podcast | Episode 24

      The guests keep getting bigger, literally, as big Will Skelton joins us to talk Ronan O’Gara v Christophe Urios, the slap, the trilogy against Bordeaux, how he hasn’t heard from the Wallabies despite reports he isn’t being considered for the series against England, life in La Rochelle, who the team jokers are and wait for it… how he’s the smallest of three brothers! Plus, we look ahead to all of the Champions Cup Round of 16 ties and we pick our MEATER Moment of the Week…
      Use the code FRENCHPOD10 at checkout for 10% off any full price item at Meater.com

      “It’s exciting, there is the bar and it’s how you pitch yourself. We fell short on Friday but you get back on the horse and see where we get to against Bristol. We have got all the pieces that we can fit together. Without getting too deep, I told the lads here the other day my missus is into design, trend forecasting, designing bags and shoes and stuff when she was younger. 

      “She came back one day years ago and what she said just struck me the other day. The expression she had was a Japanese concept, wabi-sabi. It is found in the perfection and imperfection, it maintains the concept that nothing is finished, nothing is permanent and nothing is perfect.

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      “So examples of wabi-sabi pottery are ones where they make a really beautiful bowl, an almost perfect-looking bowl and they break it, then remake it and gild the cracks in with gold and in doing so they create something which is not perfect but is more valuable and more precious and more aseptically appreciated, something stronger because all the cracks you have had you have managed to fill in with gold. 

      “So I was talking to the lads and sometimes when you are reaching for perfection – which most teams are – you never quite reach there and it is never quite good enough and you are never happy with it, but if you are able to embrace the imperfections, understand you have got all the pieces, then it’s just about filling the cracks in, just about putting those pieces together and creating something stronger.

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      “We feel like we have done a bit of that already this season but we’re still not there yet, we still haven’t got this bowl that we want to put together again but we understand the concept because of the Japanese conceptual vocabulary, wabi-sabi.” 

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      Flankly 25 minutes ago
      Maro Itoje: What was said as Lions fell 'far behind' on scoreboard

      This is what dreams are made of

      Umm. Credit to a winning team, but to be clear … the team you beat is ranked 6th in the world, did not make it out of the pool stage of the last RWC, and came last in the 2024 Rugby Championship. Not sure any bookie has them as favorites for the 2025 RC either.


      Australia have made progress for sure, and of course that matters. But for a team made up of 4 leading rugby nations, including two that are ranked much higher than this opposition, a win is expected and a loss would be humiliating. Furthermore, with weeks of playing together, planning together and living together it is hard to argue that the Lions have had less opportunity for cohesion than Australia.


      A win is a win, and no-one should question that. But a last-minute one-score win that depended on a 50/50 penalty call is one to humbly accept, rather than to crow about. It was neither a beating, nor even a compelling win. I thought win was not undeserved, but it’s a close call on which was the better team on the day.


      And let’s get off this nonsense about it being like a world cup final. The local pub teams may feel that their big game is like a world cup final, but it’s stupid to pretend it is the reality. The RWC final is played by two of the top teams in the world, and there is no evidence that either of these teams fits that description. There is a game in Eden Park later this year between the #1 and #2 ranked teams that would be a lot closer to it, of course.


      Well done to the Lions, and congrats to the Wallabies. Let’s enjoy a good game for what it was, without pretending it was something bigger than it was.

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