{"id":397498,"date":"2026-01-07T12:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T12:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/397498\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T12:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T12:44:10","slug":"sanderson-takes-bait-and-claps-back-in-war-of-words-with-sharks-owner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/397498\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanderson takes bait and claps back in war of words with Sharks owner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Alex Sanderson admits that his pre-match team talk is sorted as he aims to show Marco Masotti who the \u201cangriest and most aggressive shark\u201d is in the showdown of the Sharks<\/a> in Manchester on Saturday. <\/p>\n

New York lawyer Masotti, who owns the Durban-based URC outfit, has cheekily suggested on social media ahead of the Champions Cup clash that the Gallagher PREM side rebrand as \u201cSale<\/a> Tuna.\u201d <\/p>\n

He wants them to leave his side as the world\u2019s sole \u201cSharks\u201d rugby club, a move that hasn\u2019t gone down well at Sale\u2019s Carrington training base this week. <\/p>\n

The Wall Street powerbroker plans to attend the game, and his post will certainly come back to haunt him if Sanderson has anything to do with it after his post on X caused a war of words to break out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll lean into that. Do they respect us as an organisation? Questionable, certainly not from the top. I will have that in the back pocket. Those lads who are on social media might want bragging rights. <\/p>\n

Fixture<\/p>\n

Investec Champions Cup<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sale <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sharks <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to find something every week that pushes the buttons. There\u2019s enough there for us this week. Michelle [Orange, Sale\u2019s co-owner] said, tongue-in-cheek, maybe we should rebrand as Manchester Megalodons.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been theming it up like that. Who is going to be the bigger, better, more aggressive Shark? Funnily enough, my mum\u2019s coming to watch on Saturday, and she\u2019s not well. <\/p>\n

\u201cThree years ago, she gave me a fossilised megalodon tooth, so I could remind myself, when she\u2019s not around to nag me, of the kind of shark I want to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe the biggest shark, be the angriest shark, be the most aggressive shark, day to day. I\u2019m probably going to talk about that to the lads. <\/p>\n

\u201cI want to show her that I can be this person, this coach that she wants me to be. There\u2019s always personal reasons for you to be motivated,\u201d said Sanderson.<\/p>\n

Sanderson says that the South Africans will be walking into conditions that few of them will have experienced before, and that they need to use the conditions to their advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cMinus three conditions at the CorpAcq Stadium, they\u2019re flying in from 25 degrees in Durban. It is going to have to be a quick acclimatisation for them. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe CorpAcq at night in midwinter helps us against anyone. It\u2019s not a nice place to come, and we want to keep it that way,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Sanderson admits that his pre-match team talk is sorted as he aims to show Marco Masotti who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-397498","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\/397498","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=397498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}