Tom Roebuck: 'Will Addison was my guy, I've quite a history with him'

When Will Addison scored the very first try at the AJ Bell/Salford Community Stadium in 2012, young Sale fan Tom Roebuck was only 11 years old and dreaming of becoming a professional rugby player. With it being half a lifetime ago, Roebuck can’t remember if he was there or not in person to see Addison make history that day against Saracens, or when Addison scored the final try in the club’s swansong at Edgeley Park.

But the two soon became familiar with one another when the current England winger started to catch the eye as an academy player, with Addison – 10 years his senior – serving as his mentor. It would be a while before Roebuck managed to break through into the first team and by the time he did, making his debut in the 2018/19 season, Addison was no longer around.

The Irish-qualified utility back’s desire to play international rugby led to him signing for Ulster and while his Test match ambitions were fulfilled, the move to Belfast was mired by bad news after bad news on the injury front. The former Sale captain is now back in Manchester following a close-season return to his original club and Roebuck is delighted to have the Cumbrian alongside him again, albeit this time they are on a much more equal footing – as fellow internationals.

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“He was someone I spoke to quite a lot in my time in the academy,” explained the 23-year-old Roebuck to RugbyPass. “Sale did this thing where they connected a promising academy player that they wanted to keep an eye on with a first-team player, to let them ask tips and advice. Will Addison was my guy, so I have quite a history with him.

“I messaged him quite a lot when I was younger, and now he has come back we have spoken about it and had a bit of a laugh about it with where we are now. It’s good to have him back, he is from the north and is a Sale player first. To have those lads in the club is always vital because they drive what being a Sale player means properly.

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“It is always good to take inspiration from them. He has already been vocal and he is not shy of giving his opinion, and usually it is a good point. So any advice you can take from these leaders and experienced players is always something you want to cherish.”

While Addison’s Ireland career has ended at five caps, Roebuck will be disappointed if he doesn’t go past that figure for England having made his debut off the bench against Japan in June. His 20-minute cameo put to bed the prickly topic of discussion about whether the Inverness-born winger would choose the thistle or the rose. “I was pretty open with what I wanted to do, to play for England. It [Scotland] didn’t really sit with me.”

About his debut in Tokyo, he added: “It was a pretty surreal feeling to be fair, it was good, and obviously one that I had been hoping for a while and it was good to finally get it. The environment we were in was good and they were pretty open with the fact they wanted to get the subs on and show what they can do. So that was a good feeling, going in knowing that they valued you.

“The way the game went we had a decent lead which meant they were more likely to bring the subs on. I managed to touch the ball a couple of times so I was grateful for that; there have been times when I have come off the bench and just chased kicks or watched the play go by, so it was good to get a bit of ball.”

Hungry for more Test exposure, Roebuck knows he will have to stay right on top of his game and take it on to new levels if he is to ward off the threat of two other young English contenders on the wing, Northampton’s Ollie Sleightholme and Exeter’s Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, the man he replaced in Tokyo.

While Roebuck matched Feyi-Waboso’s 10-try count in the Premiership last season to finish joint-second in the top finishers charts, Sleightholme was way out in front with 15 for the title-winning Saints.

“The wing spot with England is full of good contenders, not only those two but four or five others. You would put their name in the hat and it would be hotly contested. So it is just about keeping doing what you are doing, because at the end of the day that is the reason you got picked in the first place, and looking for ways to improve as much as you can.”

For Roebuck, improvement means being busy and making as many positive involvements in matches as possible. “England have given us some good points and we have worked on them closely at Sale to try and work out what we want to go after this year. It has been good to get that clarity.

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“It is about trying to get my hands on the ball as much as possible and being able to beat as many defenders as I possibly can. As a winger one of your key roles is when you get the ball, you make yards, you score tries and you finish things off. That’s what I have been focusing most of my time on in the summer.”

Sale kick off their season on Sunday with a home game against Harlequins. Alex Sanderson would have rather celebrated his 100th major (Premiership/Europe) match in charge of the Sharks in the final at Twickenham, but last season’s semi-final defeat to Bath saw him stuck on 99 for the summer.

Under Sanderson, Sale have reached the league play-offs in three out of four seasons, including making the 2023 final, and days thinking of themselves as underdogs are long gone. “Our mentality for the last 10 years has been underdogs, but I don’t think we want to hold onto that forever. We want to be an established team that people fear and know are looking to do well.

“To be honest the public perception of us doesn’t worry us too much. We look inwards, not outwards, and we focus on what the lads in the team believe they can do and we all think in this club that we can go on and win a Premiership.

“Being close twice has probably put fuel on the fire and is driving us this year, but we also appreciate that there are nine other teams that can probably go on and win it. It is a hotly contested league.”