{"id":592064,"date":"2026-04-07T21:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T21:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/592064\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T21:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T21:44:08","slug":"sale-believe-courtney-lawes-can-regain-england-place-after-veteran-signs-one-year-deal-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/592064\/","title":{"rendered":"Sale believe Courtney Lawes can regain England place after veteran signs one-year deal | Sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtney Lawes has been backed to regain his England place following confirmation he will be joining Sale<\/a> Sharks this summer on a one-year deal. The former national captain has spent the last two seasons with Brive in France\u2019s Pro D2 but has indicated he would love to play international rugby again should the chance arise.<\/p>\n

While Lawes will be 38 next February and retired from the Test arena after the 2023 World Cup in France, he still feels he can make an impact at the top level of the game. That view is shared by Sale\u2019s director of rugby, Alex Sanderson, who is looking forward to welcoming the former Northampton stalwart to Manchester.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019d have signed him if he was just a player who wanted a paycheck,\u201d said Sanderson. \u201cThat\u2019s not what I\u2019m seeing and the stats don\u2019t reflect that. He\u2019s still got the ability and experience to play some great rugby over the next season, if not the next couple.<\/p>\n

\u201cCourtney is robust, dynamic around the park and he hits hard, but he has a fantastic skill set that means he\u2019s so much more than just a banger. He wants to bring people with him and lead from the front and I love that. Plus he\u2019s captained England and knows what it\u2019s like to play and win on the biggest stage. Clearly he also believes in what we\u2019re building. It\u2019s a good fit for him with his aspiration to get back into the World Cup team.\u201d<\/p>\n

In total Lawes represented England at four World Cups and spent 17\u00a0years at Northampton, winning two Premiership titles and two Challenge Cup trophies. Having also gained 105\u00a0caps and won three Six\u00a0Nations titles for England he is similarly convinced he has more in him. \u201cMy body feels good and I\u2019m still performing at a high level. I feel like I can compete with the best of them, and then some, and if I retired now, I\u2019d probably regret it when I was older.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a rugby player, you\u2019ve got a very finite career and you\u2019re a long time retired so I want to make the most of it while I can. I\u2019m officially un-retiring from international duty and I\u2019d love to play for England again, but first and foremost I want to play well for Sale and we\u2019ll see what happens after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

This week, however, Sale are facing a manpower crisis before Saturday\u2019s Champions Cup quarter-final trip to Dublin to face Leinster. England squad members Luke Cowan-Dickie and Bevan Rodd have both been ruled out for the rest of the domestic season while the Sharks\u2019 hooker Nathan Jibulu has received a six-week ban for biting his former Harlequins teammate Will Hobson.<\/p>\n

The incident took place in the final quarter of Sale\u2019s 26-17 win over Quins on Saturday at the Stoop, where Jibulu was returning for the first time since relocating to Salford last summer. The 23-year-old admitted he had committed an act of foul play that warranted a red card and escaped a 12-week ban after a disciplinary panel took into account his guilty plea, relative inexperience and previously clean record.<\/p>\n

Sanderson believes the incident will prove \u201ca blip in what is going to be a very long and successful career\u201d and \u201cshape the kind of player he is going to be\u201d regardless of whether it undermines Jibulu\u2019s chances of being picked by Steve Borthwick to tour with England this summer. \u201cHe\u2019s good now, he\u2019s going to be brilliant,\u201d said Sanderson. \u201cHe\u2019s certainly got the attributes to be an international hooker.\u201d*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Courtney Lawes has been backed to regain his England place following confirmation he will be joining Sale Sharks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-592064","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\/592064","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=592064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}