{"id":593886,"date":"2026-05-20T06:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T06:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/593886\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T06:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T06:50:13","slug":"springboks-and-england-stars-among-20-farewelled-by-prem-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/593886\/","title":{"rendered":"Springboks and England stars among 20 farewelled by PREM side"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Barbarians<\/a><\/p>\n

Sale Sharks have confirmed 15 players will leave the club at the end of the season, with a further five making an immediate exit as the PREM outfit ramp up their squad overhaul.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among the list of departing players, Raffi Quirke, James Harper, Obi Ene and Dan and Rob du Preez had already been confirmed, with a further 10 players now set to follow them through the exit door.<\/p>\n

Their list of exiting players comes with the Sharks<\/a> also announcing 12 new signings ahead of next season, with the likes of Joe Marchant, Courtney Lawes, Tomas Francis, Nicky Smith and Christ Tshiunza all heading to the CorpAcq.<\/p>\n

Sale Sharks confirm 20 player exits as Springbok and England stars leave PREM side<\/p>\n

The headline exits are, of course, those of the Springbok-capped Du Preez brothers and England international Quirke. Centre Rob will join brother Jean-Luc, also a former Shark, in the Top 14 next season after signing for Bayonne, while back-rower Dan and Quirke will head to PREM rivals Bath and Newcastle respectively.<\/p>\n

Quirke will also be joined by the aforementioned Harper and Ene at Kingston Park, with the pair also agreeing moves to the Red Bulls.<\/p>\n

England boss Steve Borthwick makes latest coaching call ahead of Nations Championship<\/a><\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Tumy Onasanya, WillGriff John, Hyron Andrews, Nye Thomas, Tom Curtis, Joe Bedlow, Huw Davies, Albert Bradshaw, Tom Davis and Frank Chatterton will also leave at the end of the season, while Tadgh McElroy, Sam Bedlow, Rouban Birch, Will Wootton and Jack Lightbown have departed with immediate effect.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as\u00a0a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a>\u00a0for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

Gurshwin Wehr and Regan Grace also departed the CorpAcq back in January following the end of their short-term deals.<\/p>\n

Commenting on the departing players, Sale director of rugby, Alex Sanderson<\/a>, said: \u201cIt\u2019s been a year of transition and a year of change and a year that I know we\u2019ll be the better for going forward. But that\u2019s on the back of the efforts and the contributions of the friends who are leaving us and have already left.<\/p>\n

SA Rugby warned of Champions Cup backlash as Sharks owner issues \u2018clear\u2019 threat to governing body<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019ll miss them all\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got lads who are Sale through and through, who have come through the Academy to become first-teamers, like Raffi and James Harper; a club legend like Rob who is a future hall of famer; and younger lads like Huw, Frank and Albert who haven\u2019t played as much as they\u2019d have hoped.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo a man, everyone has invested themselves into the club and whether they\u2019ve played two games or 200, everyone at the club is so grateful for their contributions, for putting their trust in us and for their friendships, which I have no doubt will continue past the end of this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve all been a part of this special group and they\u2019ve all come together in the good times and when it\u2019s been tough. We\u2019ll miss them all.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: \u2018It doesn\u2019t sit right with me\u2019 \u2013 England great hits out at Benhard Janse van Rensburg call-up<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sale Sharks have confirmed 15 players will leave the club at the end of the season, with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[123411,348,50,21002,5903,32645,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-593886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-alex-sanderson","tag-home-page","tag-news","tag-premiership","tag-rugby","tag-sale-sharks","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593886","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=593886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}