Where does Sale's Alex Sanderson rank as a PREM Director of Rugby?

A graphic popped up during TNT Sports’ coverage of the Gallagher PREM at the weekend showing how Rob Baxter is closing in on Dean Richards’ record as the competition’s longest-serving Director of Rugby. Richards ranks first with 381 PREM games under his belt, with Baxter just 33 behind.

While Richards served three paymasters in the PREM – Leicester, Harlequins and Newcastle, Baxter looks certain to remain a ‘one-club’ man, after recently being awarded a new, multi-year contract.

Unless new investors read the room differently, Baxter seems to have a job for life down in Devon, which is a rare concept in professional sport where one minute you are flavour of the month, and the next you’re out on your ear.

However, most successful clubs have benefitted from continuity in the coaching department, and that’s maybe the thinking of Sale Sharks’ owners, Simon and Michelle Orange and Ged Mason, who are standing by their man, Alex Sanderson … for now.

Baxter is the only PREM DoR that Exeter have ever known, and delivered a first PREM title in 2017 and famously a League and Champions Cup double in 2020.

Less patient owners might have pulled the trigger after Exeter shelled 70 points at Gloucester last season and experienced their worst-ever PREM season.

But, now, Baxter is repaying the faith shown in him by reinventing the team and the coaching group around him, as the Chiefs chase a third PREM crown.

Sanderson has been in the Sharks’ hotseat since January 2021 and been in charge for a total of 113 PREM games (not including the cancelled Covid match on Boxing Day 2021 when a win was awarded to Newcastle), with 66 wins, four draws and 43 defeats. Only three of those wins have come this season, 13 matches into a campaign that is fast unravelling.

A nadir was reached in Salford on Sunday when the Sharks were on the receiving end of a record 85-19 defeat to a Saracens side that’s enjoyed a below-par season themselves. Having leaked 13 tries in that match, Sale have now conceded more tries (390) than they have scored (386) under the man they hired from Saracens.

The same heat that Baxter felt is now being applied to Sanderson by supporters up in arms at Sunday’s no-show.

Yet it’s striking to think that Baxter’s PREM win rate as Chiefs boss (59.4%) is only fractionally better than Sanderson’s 58.4%, albeit over a much longer period of time. But the main difference is that Baxter still had plenty of credit left in the bank, whereas Sanderson has yet to deliver a trophy.

Mark McCall is the only other DoR other than Richards and Baxter to have been in charge for 300-plus PREM games, and he could finish his time with Saracens at the end of this season with a win-rate of over 70%, which would be a remarkable feat for someone at the helm for so long.

Current PREM DoR/Head Coach win-rates:

1. Geoff Parling (Leicester): P13, W10 (77.9%)
2. Mark McCall (Saracens): P320, W226 (70.6%)
3. Johann van Graan (Bath): P74, W47 (63.5%)
4. Phil Dowson (Northampton): P74, W46 (62.2%)
5. Rob Baxter (Exeter Chiefs): P348, W207 (59.4%)
6. Alex Sanderson (Sale Sharks): P113, W66 (58.4%)
7. Pat Lam (Bristol): P162, W86 (53.1%)
8. George Skivington (Gloucester): P121, W47 (38.8%)
9. Jason Gilmore (Harlequins): P13, W3 (23.1%)
10. Stephen Jones (Newcastle): P3, W0 (0%)