{"id":370992,"date":"2025-12-25T13:15:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T13:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/370992\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T13:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T13:15:07","slug":"sale-squads-honest-meeting-with-owners-has-reset-ambitions-says-sanderson-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/370992\/","title":{"rendered":"Sale squad\u2019s \u2018honest\u2019 meeting with owners has reset ambitions, says Sanderson | Sale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Alex Sanderson has said an \u201chonest\u201d meeting of Sale\u2019s owners, players and coaches this week has set their intention for the Boxing Day encounter with Harlequins and beyond.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Sharks are seventh in the Prem table, with two wins from seven, and were soundly beaten by Northampton at Franklin\u2019s Gardens last Saturday. Their most recent Prem victory <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2025\/oct\/10\/sale-newcastle-prem-rugby-union-match-report\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">came against Newcastle<\/a> on 10 October, and the director of rugby knows they need to start winning to have any chance of reaching the playoffs for a fourth straight season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a crisis meeting, but honest \u2013 about what kind of team we want to be,\u201d Sanderson said. \u201cNot an inconsistent one, a one week on, one week off team. Those teams don\u2019t reach semi-finals, don\u2019t reach finals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cWe\u2019ve got this opportunity now, at home, in front of our families [against Quins]. We talked about families watching, your kids watching. Does it matter? Does it [defeat] hurt enough? Real deep questions around that. We\u2019ve delved into that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Both sides will have a point to prove at CorpAcq Stadium on Friday: \u201cdented pride\u201d as Sanderson put it. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2025\/dec\/20\/harlequins-bristol-prem-rugby-union-match-report\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Harlequins were thrashed by Bristol<\/a> at Twickenham last Saturday, conceding 40 points, while Sale leaked 47 against rampant Saints on the same day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Sanderson said the pre-Christmas meeting with the owners, Simon and Michelle Orange, established minimum requirements for the squad given the level of investment: Sale\u2019s most recent accounts showed an annual loss of \u00a38m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cThe owners came in to say: \u2018This isn\u2019t going to stop.\u2019 They\u2019re supporting the players financially and will continue to do that \u2026 The understanding is that if they\u2019re financially supporting the club, the minimum they ask for is a performance based around effort. Everyone can try hard, can\u2019t they?<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cThey came in to show solidarity and to tell the players that nothing\u2019s going away in terms of support. It wasn\u2019t an ultimatum but just: \u2018Understand we\u2019re all in this together.\u2019 I thought that was quite a powerful thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Sanderson welcomes the England fly-half George Ford back to face Harlequins after a groin strain with Bevan Rodd, Joe Carpenter and Rekeiti Ma\u2019asi-White also returning to action.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cThere\u2019s a few big hitters that could come into the frame,\u201d Sanderson said. \u201cThey are going to be a massive boost for us, not just in terms of experience, but how they drive standards which weren\u2019t there last weekend. We need a response.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Sanderson has said an \u201chonest\u201d meeting of Sale\u2019s owners, players and coaches this week has set their&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-370992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}