{"id":222845,"date":"2025-10-24T14:37:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T14:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/222845\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T14:37:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T14:37:19","slug":"team-news-leicester-tigers-vs-sale-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/222845\/","title":{"rendered":"TEAM NEWS | LEICESTER TIGERS VS SALE SHARKS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Alex Sanderson makes\u00a0four personnel changes \u2013 and three\u00a0positional\u00a0switches \u2013 as his Sharks side prepare to face Leicester Tigers at Mattioli Woods Welford Road on Saturday evening (5.30pm KO, live on TNT Sports).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" data-id=\"88188\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/tom-roebuck-1-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-88188\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Jacques Vermeulen and\u00a0Rekeiti\u00a0Ma\u2019asi\u00a0White return after injury\u00a0while Luke James starts at full-back and James Harper starts at tighthead, meaning a switch to loosehead for Asher Opoku-Fordjour.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The second positional change sees\u00a0Tom O\u2019Flaherty back on the wing after starting at full-back in round four\u00a0and the final change sees skipper Ernst van\u00a0Rhyn\u00a0move to lock. Dan du\u00a0Preez\u00a0returns from injury to take his place on the replacements bench.<\/p>\n<p>With props Bevan Rodd and Si McIntyre missing after sustaining injuries against Saracens,\u00a0Opoku-Fordjour\u00a0starts\u00a0at loosehead prop for the first time this season.\u00a0He\u2019ll\u00a0pack down with Cowan-Dickie, who is free to play after having his red card at the\u00a0StoneX\u00a0overturned, and Harper.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With\u00a0Hyron\u00a0Andrews\u00a0missing through injury, skipper van\u00a0Rhyn\u00a0joins Ben Bamber in the engine room. Vermeulen\u00a0returns from a hamstring problem to join\u00a0Tristan\u00a0Woodman and\u00a0Sam Dugdale in the\u00a0back-row.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>England fly-half\u00a0George\u00a0Ford starts\u00a0once\u00a0again alongside scrum-half Gus Warr,\u00a0and\u00a0they\u2019ll\u00a0have\u00a0the pairing of\u00a0Ma\u2019asi-White\u00a0and Rob du\u00a0Preez\u00a0outside them in the centres.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Flaherty\u00a0and\u00a0Tom\u00a0Roebuck start on the wings with\u00a0the returning James\u00a0at full-back.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Sharks bench\u00a0is\u00a0once again\u00a0packed with\u00a0young\u00a0talent with\u00a0hooker Nathan\u00a0Jibulu\u00a0joining\u00a0Tumy\u00a0Onasanya\u00a0and\u00a0Patreece\u00a0Bell\u00a0as the front row replacements.\u00a0Tom Burrow\u00a0and\u00a0du\u00a0Preez\u00a0are the rest of the forwards on the bench.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Raffi\u00a0Quirke,\u00a0Marius\u00a0Louw\u00a0and\u00a0Arron Reed\u00a0make up the rest of the replacements.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Starting XV:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>15.\u00a0Luke James,\u00a014.\u00a0Tom Roebuck,\u00a013. Rob du\u00a0Preez, 12.\u00a0Rekeiti\u00a0Ma\u2019asi-White,\u00a011.\u00a0Tom O\u2019Flaherty,\u00a010.\u00a0George Ford,\u00a09.\u00a0Gus Warr; 1.\u00a0Asher Opoku-Fordjour, 2.\u00a0Luke Cowan-Dickie, 3.\u00a0James Harper,\u00a04. Ernst van\u00a0Rhyn\u00a0\u00a9, 5.\u00a0Ben Bamber,\u00a06.\u00a0Jacques Vermeulen,\u00a07.\u00a0Tristan Woodman, 8. Sam Dugdale.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Replacements:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>16.\u00a0Nathan\u00a0Jibulu,\u00a017.\u00a0Tumy\u00a0Onasanya,\u00a018.\u00a0Patreece\u00a0Bell,\u00a019.\u00a0Tom Burrow,\u00a020.\u00a0Dan du\u00a0Preez,\u00a021.\u00a0Raffi Quirke,\u00a022.\u00a0Marius Louw, 23. Arron Reed.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Sanderson makes\u00a0four personnel changes \u2013 and three\u00a0positional\u00a0switches \u2013 as his Sharks side prepare to face Leicester Tigers&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-222845","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\/222845","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=222845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}