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The George Ford reaction at Sale after his 'fringe' England part
By Liam Heagney
George Ford is back in the selection mix at Sale and looking to put one over his old England boss Stuart Lancaster on Friday. It was 2014 when Lancaster awarded Ford his Test debut, but the out-half will be plotting against his former head coach this weekend when the Sharks seek to get a win over Racing 92 and belatedly kick start their European campaign.
Ford was rested for last Saturday’s 19-38 round one thumping at Glasgow but has since returned to training with the hope of firing up Sale’s Investec Champions Cup campaign, which also features January matches away to the Stormers and at home to Toulon following holiday-time Gallagher Premiership outings versus Exeter, Bristol and Gloucester.
The 31-year-old had a miserable November with England, enduring difficult moments off the bench in the losses to New Zealand and Australia and then being left an unused sub in the follow-up defeat to South Africa.
He played the full 80 minutes for Sale in their December 1 league win over Handre Pollard’s Leicester but a mandatory RFU rest followed the week of the Warriors match before getting stuck into preparations for Racing.
“That’s his exact frame of mind,” said Sanderson on Tuesday evening before exiting Carrington for his son’s nativity play. “George is driving it, taking hold of it which is where he is best.
“Not on the fringes of a squad but driving the intent and the language and the standards, so he has come back in today and was very much part of it again – and that’s what we spoke about.
"He just felt like he was in and out and not really a consistent member of that England squad over the autumn internationals, certainly not on the pitch, and he wants to get some games, get some form and really grab hold of something, so we will facilitate that for him coming back in.”
The script when the Champions Cup draw was made over the summer was for a Ford versus Owen Farrell head-to-head in Manchester but that match-up was dashed with Farrell’s recent groin operation. “Pity, that’s a shame,” agreed Sanderson.
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Go to commentsHi all. Thanks for commenting. JD is right: the headline is not mine. My headline was what ended up as the first sentence: “Why is Super Rugby Pacific so exciting this season?”. I am certainly not claiming that teams from one competition are better than the teams from another. This type of discussion is entirely subjective (as the teams do not play each other, and even with the players face each other in their national teams, it is in different systems, conditions, etc.). The season being exciting has nothing to do how well the Wallabies will do against the Lions, or against New Zealand.
My sole purpose here was to try explore quantitatively a ‘qualitative’ impression (that the season is exciting).
On Graham’s point about extreme results skewing the results, and Ed’s comment on removing outliers, this is precisely why I report the median values as well as the averages. The median is not skewed by outliers. If the margins of 5 games are 3, 4, 5, 8 and 10 points, the median margin is 5. If there was one blowout and the margins were 3, 4, 5, 8 and 57 points, the median margin is still 5.
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