'I give him a call and he will give me advice': Alex Sanderson still using Saracens hotline 14 weeks into his Sale tenure
You can take Alex Sanderson out of Saracens but you seemingly can’t take Sarries out of the London club’s former assistant 14 weeks into his new role as Sale director of rugby. Despite being busy guiding the Sharks at the upper end of the Gallagher Premiership, he hasn’t forgotten the Championship fight he left behind when he was confirmed as Steve Diamond’s successor on January 15.
While Sanderson’s Sale picked up their latest top-flight win on Saturday at Worcester, his old club Saracens were preparing for Sunday’s all-important top-table Championship clash at home to leaders Ealing.
That match comes at the end of a week where lengthy contract extensions through to 2025 were announced for Saracens boss Mark McCall and nine other staff members at the club where Sanderson had been a long-serving part of the backroom until last January when he opted to move away from a set-up he knew inside out.
He left Sarries with their best wishes and his links haven’t faded in his time in Manchester, Sanderson telling RugbyPass last Tuesday before speaking from the Sale training ground that he had just missed a call on his phone from his former boss who has remained in regular contact with his old pal.
“I just had a missed call from Mark McCall just as the interview was on so there is the answer to your question, I speak to them every week. Mark McCall is my mentor now. Well, he was then but if I have got something I don’t know about, which is every week there is something I don’t know how to handle, I give him a call and he will give me advice. So yeah, still very good friends with them.”
"I’m constantly amazed and surprised by this fella"
– The de Jager attitude in the face of his latest injury adversity has known no bounds https://t.co/xjx3bSEq8R
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) April 21, 2021
While Sale are chasing points to consolidate their chase for a top-four Premiership finish and were recently involved in the knockout stages of the Heineken Champions Cup, Saracens’ second-tier season only got underway in early March. They endured a terrible start, losing away to Cornish Pirates, but they have since won four matches and will now look to end unbeaten Ealing’s winning streak.”
Sanderson has been keenly watching their progress. “I saw the 50-point win last weekend,” he said, referencing the away victory last Sunday at Doncaster. “This weekend is the bigger one, this is the one they want to win and have to get right to finish top.
“It’s really difficult for those lads because a lot of them are probably in a position where they don’t want to be, they just don’t want to be there (playing in the Championship). Some of them might feel they don’t deserve to be there, so finding that motivation to go out every week and perform at your best is a really intrinsic thing.
“You have really got to dig deep to understand themselves to get the performances that they need. Ealing at home, there is not much more motivation needed there, not after the two losses they faced in the warm-up [the Trailfinders Cup].
“They are going to come straight back up and be a force to be reckoned with again. I know that because I sat down with them all before I came here. I wanted to understand where the club was going and got a proper feel for what I was leaving and get all the cards on the table. I’m confident they are in a good place to push on when they come back up.”
Having been part of the serial trophy-winning Saracens set-up for so long before their automatic relegation for salary cap breaches, it is understandable that Sanderson has compared his old club with the scene he has inherited at Sale.
“There is so much about this team that is special and more than what I have been used to at Saracens,” he reckoned. “Obviously there are things that we need to improve on which are nowhere near the level of what Sarries has been functioning at.
“But when it comes to the physicality, when it comes to the team spirit, all those things that I spoke about before La Rochelle that we had for the first 40 minutes, all those things that I prioritise above all else, they have in abundance here, they already had it.
“They were already a big, physical team so it’s perhaps more about the detail, more about the small things, consistently doing those small things well to get a more consistent performance and that is what I found over the last 14 weeks.”
TEAM NEWS:
'No room for error' is the message from Saracens ahead of their must-see London derby with leaders Ealing https://t.co/fl2c4th5Ts
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) April 23, 2021
Comments on RugbyPass
We’re building a bridge but can't agree where the river is.
2 Go to commentsfirst no arms shoulder or helmet tackle into his rib cage is going to be so very painful even to watch. go back to RU mate.
1 Go to commentsBulls by 5. Plus another 50.
3 Go to commentsJohan Goosen avatar. Cute. Surely someone at RP knows how to do a google image search?
3 Go to commentsCan’t these games play a little earlier? Asking for a friend.
3 Go to commentsIt’s impressive that we can see huge stadiums with attendance in the 40 000 to 50 000 region. It shows how popular this competition is becoming. What is even more impressive is the massive growth in broadcast viewership. The URC is one of the two best leagues in the World, the other being the Top14.
7 Go to commentsChristie is not Sottish, like the majority of the Scotland team.
2 Go to commentsHold the phone, decline over-rated. Is it a one game, dead cat bounce or the real thing? Has the Penney dropped? Stay tuned.
45 Go to commentsTotally deserved win for the Crusaders Far smarter than the Chiefs who seem to be avoiding the basics when it matters Hotham showed them what was missing and Hannah seems a real find - a tad light but that can be fixed over time
8 Go to commentsGreat insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
2 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
7 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
45 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
8 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
8 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
8 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
45 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to comments