LONG READ 'Tom or Ben?' Sale's reunited Wales props mix up Curry options to add extra bite to Sharks

Every rugby club has its own idiosyncrasies for incomers to deal with. For the new signings at Sale, one of the most challenging involves learning to tell the Curry twins apart.

The summer arrivals Nicky Smith and Tomas Francis have been taking this on. At the club’s Carrington training ground, the two Wales props compare notes on how they are going.

“I was doing well until today, but Tom has cut his hair and he looks more like Ben now which threw me,” admits Francis.

“I was exactly the same,” agrees Smith. “I messed up today. I sat down next to Ben, but I thought it was Tom. ‘How was the extra fitness today?’ I asked him. ‘Mate, that’s my brother,’ he replied. I apologised. To be fair to him he did laugh.”

The game of back row ‘guess who’ is a novel introduction to life in the north for the pair who have been reunited after Smith made the surprise decision to leave Leicester while Francis ended a spell in France’s Pro D2 with Provence.

They had differing drivers. Smith, at 32, was lured by the offer of a three-year contract while Francis, 34, was able to move his family back closer to his native Yorkshire at what he sees as being his final club.

The shared vision was they both see Sale, besides being likely Prem play-off contenders again this season after their blip year in 2025/26, as offering a good runway to next year’s World Cup with Wales.

It came as a surprise to both when they found out that, after two seasons at the Ospreys between 2021 and 2023, they were about to become clubmates again.

Nicky and Dickie – it’s a bit of a mouthful – we really need to change one of their names – but the chance to play with them again is a pull for me.

“I signed and then when it got announced he texted me saying: ‘I’ve signed,’ explains Smith. “I was like: ‘Shut up you’re just winding me up.’”

Francis interjects: “They had told me they’d signed a Welsh international loose-head. I hoped it was (Rhys) Carre!”

With British and Irish Lions hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie, another old team-mate of Francis’s from Exeter, in between them, it will make for a formidable front row.

“Nicky and Dickie – it’s a bit of a mouthful – we really need to change one of their names – but the chance to play with them again is a pull for me,” says Francis.

“In the latter stage of your career, you want to play with your mates and class players, so it’s good.”

Injuries exposed a lack of front row depth last season for Sale but that should not be a problem this season. Not when they have two other full England international props in Asher Opoku-Fordjour and Bevan Rodd plus an England A hooker in Nathan Jibulu in the building.

“We sat down in the front row meeting the other day and you look round and see the quality there,” says Smith.

“We’ve probably got two or three boys in each position that you would be more than happy for them to start. I think that’s the really exciting thing with this club – that strength in depth, especially in the front row, is very impressive.”

“The rotation aspect is key,” adds Francis. “You’re not going to be asked to go 80 every week. There’s so much talent in the stable that you’re going to be managed.

“Pro D2 is a little different to the Premiership and I’ll probably have to get back up to speed. But I’ll be given time to get used to it and be looked after well here which will get the best out of me for Sale and Wales.”

I always left it open with Wales that if they needed me I’d be available. I spoke to Steve Tandy about what he was building and I found I still had that itch.

Francis, who qualifies for Wales through his grandmother, made his international return in last season’s Six Nations after a three-year absence, winning his 82nd cap during the tournament.

“I thought I was done with it. Family time was important when I left. I had a nine-month-old and 23-month-old when I left for France and I got to spend nearly every day with them with no international camp,” says Francis.

“But I always left it open with Wales that if they needed me I’d be available and I spoke to Steve Tandy about what he was building and I found I still had that itch.

“I had a good three-year recovery period, I got my neck fixed and it was exciting to come back and try again.

“My dream is to make a fourth World Cup but there are a lot of stepping stones to get to that point and nothing’s given in rugby.”

Smith, who has 67 caps, is aiming for a third World Cup but he wants Wales to arrive in Australia where they are grouped with England, Tonga and Zimbabwe in a lot better shape than they are at the moment.

“The prospect of the World Cup is really exciting. We’ve got a great chance of getting out of the group and then knockout games are one-off games but we’ve got to be better than we have been,” he says.

“I felt the back end of the Six Nations was very positive. We were very unlucky to lose to Scotland and against Ireland for 65 minutes, we gave them everything. That was really good on our part, but the summer was disappointing. To beat Fiji was great but I felt the performances weren’t there in the other two games.

We have to start off the autumn firing. Performance-wise, we have to have a higher expectation than we did in the summer.

“We’re not good enough to have bad days. We have to be on it every game. Top teams that can get away with it but we’re not there yet.

“We have to start off the autumn firing. Performance-wise, we have to have a higher expectation than we did in the summer.

“It’s just about that progression, that journey of making sure that when we’re in those World Cup stages we’re absolutely firing and full of confidence and knowing we can put our best foot forward.”

Before then there is much work to do on the Sale rebound project. Pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong last season as a club accustomed to the play-offs limped home in seventh place in the Prem.

The building blocks appear more promising this time around.

Joe Marchant is back on English soil and the Fijian Drua flier Ponipate Loganimasi will also add flair, but it is the personnel Sale have added up front which should make the difference.

The club’s reputation for uncompromising forward combat is hardly going to be diminished by the arrival of Courtney Lawes. Christ Tshiunza and Elia Canakaivaka, another recruit from the Drua, will also pack a punch.

What with Smith and Francis on board at the sharp end, it looks like the Sharks will well and truly have their bite back this season.