12 England internationals on show as Sale and Gloucester get PREM underway

Sale Sharks and Gloucester will both have six England internationals apiece for the opening match of the Gallagher PREM season on Thursday at the CorpAcq Stadium.

All six of Sale’s England stars – George Ford, Tom Roebuck, Asher Opoku-Fordjour, Bevan Rodd, Ben Curry and the newly capped Joe Carpenter – have made the XV that will start at home, with England U20 captain Tom Burrow on the bench.

Three Gloucester stars that were capped by Steve Borthwick over the summer in the tour of Argentina and the United States – Charlie Atkinson and vice-captains Seb Atkinson and Arthur Clark – will be joined by fellow England international Ollie Thorley in the starting line-up.

Another two England players will start on the Gloucester bench, Lewis Ludlow and new signing Will Joseph.

Fixture

Gallagher Premiership

Sale

27 - 10

Full-time

Gloucester

All Stats and Data

Starting XV
15. Joe Carpenter
14. Tom Roebuck
13. Rob du Preez
12. Rekeiti Ma’asi-White
11. Tom O’Flaherty
10. George Ford
9. Gus Warr
1. Bevan Rodd
2. Nathan Jibulu
3. Asher Opoku-Fordjour
4. Ernst van Rhyn (c)
5. Ben Bamber
6. Jacques Vermeulen
7. Ben Curry
8. Sam Dugdale

Replacements
16. Ethan Caine
17. Simon McIntyre
18. WillGriff John
19. Hyron Andrews
20. Tom Burrow
21. Dom Hanson
22. Arron Reed
23. Tristan Woodman

Gloucester XV
15 Charlie Atkinson
14 Ben Loader
13 Max Llewellyn
12 Seb Atkinson (vc)
11 Ollie Thorley
10 Ross Byrne*
9 Tomos Williams (c)
1 Harrison Bellamy*
2 Jack Innard
3 Afolabi Fasogbon
4 Arthur Clark (vc)
5 Matias Alemanno
6 Freddie Thomas
7 James Venter*
8 Jack Clement

Replacements
16 Kealan Freeman-Price*
17 Archie McArthur*
18 Kirill Gotovtsev
19 Cam Jordan
20 Lewis Ludlow
21 Caolan Englefield
22 Will Joseph
23 Josiah Edwards-Giraud*
*Denotes Gallagher PREM debut