{"id":175120,"date":"2025-10-02T12:36:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T12:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/175120\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T12:36:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T12:36:09","slug":"team-news-bath-rugby-v-sale-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/175120\/","title":{"rendered":"TEAM NEWS | Bath Rugby v Sale Sharks"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hyron Andrews returns to the Sharks team to face Gallagher Prem champions Bath on Friday night as Alex Sanderson makes two changes to his XV following the bonus point win over Gloucester in round one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andrews, who scored the bonus point clinching try against the Cherry and Whites, comes into the second row, meaning captain Ernst van Rhyn switches to the back row in place of the injured Jacques Vermeulen (hamstring).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sam Bedlow starts in the 12 shirt after Rekeiti Ma\u2019asi-White was forced off with injury against Gloucester, meaning new signing Marius Louw is named on the bench. \u00a0<\/p>\n

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England props Bevan Rodd and Asher Opoku-Fordjour start again in the front-row either side of Nathan Jibulu, who marked his first Prem start for Sale with a try.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The towering Andrews starts in the second row alongside Ben Bamber, with van Rhyn, Ben Curry and Sam Dugdale in the back-row.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gus Warr and England fly-half George Ford start once together once again at half-back and they\u2019ll have the pairing of Bedlow and Rob du Preez outside them in the centres.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Tom O\u2019Flaherty and Tom Roebuck start on the wings with Joe Carpenter at full-back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Sharks bench is packed with homegrown talent with Ethan Caine, Si McIntyre and WillGriff John offering front-row options alongside England U20s skipper Tom Burrow and flanker Tristan Woodman, who made his Prem debut for Sale against Gloucester.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Scrum-half Dom Hanson, who scored his first try for Sale during the Prem Rugby Cup win against Bristol, Arron Reed and former Lions captain Louw are the backs replacements.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sharks Director of Rugby Alex Sanderson said he\u2019s expecting a tough test at the Rec on Friday despite the home side being without their Lions contingent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cGoing to Bath is one of the toughest assignments in English rugby at the moment. It\u2019s one of those grounds with a partisan crowd, and a team with the ability to muscle up physically against us. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easy for things to feel like they\u2019re not going your way. We\u2019re an emotional team and in the past we\u2019ve let that affect our mentality and games have spiralled away from us in the last 20 minutes. That\u2019s been the case the last two times we\u2019ve played at Bath so we\u2019ve tried to address that this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBath are a really good team, even without some of their best players. They\u2019re probably better than they were last season and they\u2019re very well coached.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Starting XV:\u00a0<\/p>\n

15. Joe Carpenter, 14. Tom Roebuck, 13. Rob du Preez, 12. Sam Bedlow, 11. Tom O\u2019Flaherty, 10. George Ford, 9. Gus Warr; 1. Bevan Rodd, 2. Nathan Jibulu, 3. Asher Opoku-Fordjour, 4. Ben Bamber, 5. Hyron Andrews, 6. Ernst van Rhyn \u00a9, 7. Ben Curry, 8. Sam Dugdale.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Replacements:\u00a0<\/p>\n

16. Ethan Caine, 17. Simon McIntyre, 18. WillGriff John, 19. Tom Burrow, 20. Tristan Woodman, 21. Dom Hanson, 22. Arron Reed, 23. Marius Louw.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Bath Rugby have won their last three Gallagher Prem fixtures since their 26-36 away defeat to Saracens in Round 18.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bath have won their last eight home games in the PREM since Bristol beat them 36-26 at the Rec on 5 October 2024, their best home winning run since 2014.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sale Sharks have lost just twice in their last nine Gallagher Prem matches, both away at Leicester in Round 16 and last year\u2019s semi-final.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Sharks have won four of their last seven away games in the tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bath have won their last four encounters with Sale since the Sharks\u2019 11-9 win at Corpacq Stadium in November 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sale have lost on their last three visits to the Recreation Ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hyron Andrews returns to the Sharks team to face Gallagher Prem champions Bath on Friday night as Alex…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-175120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}