‘We can’t afford another season like this’
Sanderson is not naive enough to admit that victory on Saturday would rank as one of the greatest in Sale’s history, nor does he shy away from the fact that his Sharks this season have lost a considerable amount of bite.
“I don’t think we can afford to have another season like this one,” Sanderson said. “It was four years ago when we last had a season like this. We have never backed up bad seasons.
“But this not a club in freefall. It’s not a team that is pointing fingers. The wheels certainly haven’t fallen off, they just need tightening up.”
It is refreshingly, unflinchingly honest from Sanderson, who knows no other way. No one will have felt Sale’s malaise more keenly than the former back-rower, a local lad, who made almost 100 appearances for the club. This is Sanderson who has been touted on several occasions as a future England head coach. Those calls have cooled this season but Sanderson and Sale have enough credit in the bank to be given the chance to rise again.
But next season feels like a seminal one, the litmus test for Sanderson. Sources at the club say that there is zero danger of Sanderson losing his job before then. “There is disappointment but no panic stations,” one told Telegraph Sport, and there is a great deal of excitement around a handful of their signings. Nicky Smith, the Wales and Leicester loosehead, is a real coup; as is Joe Marchant, the utility back returning from Paris. The announcement of Courtney Lawes’ return this week only added greater weight to the hypothesis that, while this season had not gone Sale’s way, there is every chance that next will.