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Sanderson: The 'really smart and concise' Lucy Wray interview
By Liam Heagney
Sale boss Alex Sanderson has described the loss of Worcester and Wasps from this season’s Gallagher Premiership as a tragedy, but he hopes that clubs can follow the advice of Saracens CEO Lucy Wray and expand their future revenue streams to ensure that they thrive. Asked about the depressing financial state of the game in England, the Sharks director of rugby referenced a recent interview that his former boss at the London club gave to City AM.
He suggested there was a lot in it of use across a league where the number of participants has suddenly gone from 13 clubs down to eleven in the space of just over a week with the RFU suspending both Worcester and Wasps.
“Lucy Wray did an article in City AM which was really smart and concise and she doesn’t give many interviews,” said Sanderson, who was at Saracens for the majority of his career before switching back to Sale and becoming their DoR in January 2021. “What she talked about was the feasibility of the game and every club needing to have multiple revenue streams to be able to support the professional side of the sport. Not overspending as teams have done.
“It is absolutely tragic when potentially people are out of jobs through no fault of their own endeavours, it’s just because the game is not in a good place and has potentially been mismanaged. Both clubs have run up high amounts of debuts and are unable to pay off.
“I’m sure for the most part it was through good intentions but it doesn’t detract from the fact that you lose two huge brands, huge Premiership brands, all the jobs at these clubs and then the ripple effect of families’ lives being affected, it is tragic. It is really, really sad.
“I hope that we can now use this as a means to change the game for the better. I’ll leave that to the smarter people but there are contracts going to be written after the World Cup and there are PGB meetings going on at the moment. Now is the opportune time to make it more feasible so that clubs don’t go under.”
What happened at Worcester has especially hit home at Sale as it was only last March when they agreed that Steve Diamond, the Manchester club’s former director of rugby, could bring Curtis Langdon and Cameron Neild to the Sixways club for a 2022/23 campaign that was abruptly halted after just three Premiership games.
“The lads are in touch. Curtis Langdon came around to one of our games, a Prem Cup game, the other week. They still come back and we see them around Hale and Altringham. They are very much part of the Sale family.”
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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