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'Scarily powerful': What Alex Sanderson had to stop Manu Tuilagi from doing at Tuesday training ahead of his first Sale match in eight months
By PA
Manu Tuilagi has been looking “scarily powerful” as the England centre prepares to makes his long-awaited comeback on Friday night. Tuilagi has been sidelined since September because of an achilles injury but is on course to claim a bench role when Sale host Bristol in a clash between Gallagher Premiership title contenders at the AJ Bell Stadium.
Sale director of rugby Alex Sanderson revealed that he had to intervene during a training session on Tuesday to stop Tuilagi rampaging through tackles. “Manu is in great shape. He looks massive. Not out of shape massive, just strong as a bull,” said Sanderson.
“The lads did some live tackling and he basically gave them a bit of a bump. I had to stop him from running because he was just running through them. It’s really exciting to see. He looked scary out there. Scarily powerful.
“Manu is up for selection on Friday but with the caveat that this is not something we want to rush, it really isn’t. Take from that what you will in terms of the minutes he could play if he was selected.
“A lot of it is taken on the advice of the medical staff and his own feelings of confidence going into the game. For me, I’d back him to go on the Lions tour.”
Tuilagi’s season-long battle with injury ruled him out of England’s autumn and Six Nations campaigns, but he returns in time to reinforce the final stage of Sale’s title push. The Sharks sit third in the table with three rounds remaining and could overtake Exeter in second place, thereby securing a home semi-final.
A fit Tuilagi would have been a certainty for the Lions tour to South Africa that departs next month, but he could still face the Springboks if there is an injury in Warren Gatland’s platoon of centres and the 30-year-old comes through Sale’s run-in unharmed.
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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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