LONG READ The last du Preez standing prepares for the long goodbye from his Sale Sharks 'home'

When players return to Carrington this summer for the start of pre-season, the Sale Sharks dressing room will feel very different. And not only because the club are gearing up for a substantial summer of change, splashing the cash on a number of signings in a bid for “hopefully our best season in 20 years,” as Sale’s coach Alex Sanderson put it this week.

It will be the first season in eight years without a Du Preez brother roaming around training, bringing the aggression to Sale’s contact work, or offering the kind of reliable availability week in and week out that you just do not get that often at the top of the sport these days. Three brothers from Durban with close to 450 appearances between them for a club far from home. Who tasted success as a trio with the South African kind of Sharks, lifting the Currie Cup in 2018, in a side coached by their father, Robert du Preez senior.

“Emotionally, it’s a wrench, because I like them all, have strong relationships with them all. Seeing them marry, have kids, and make Manchester their second home,” Sanderson said this week

“From a rugby coach’s perspective, a director of rugby’s perspective, their contribution has led to our success over the last five years. And I say success, you know, in inverted commas because we haven’t won a cup, but we’ve got to finals, we’ve got to semi-finals.”

You do not have to search for long to find pairs of brothers playing together at the same club. Sale have the Currys and previously the James’s, Sam and Luke. Presumably the Willis brothers have been kept apart since their Wasps days because it would be unfair otherwise to the rest of the sport.

But a group of three brothers or more all contracted to the same club? That is extremely rare. The Barretts, obviously, have Beauden, Jordie and Scott all playing for the All Blacks, but they have never turned out for the same Super Rugby side. The Whitelocks immediately spring to mind, with Adam, George, Sam and Luke all turning out for the Crusaders. The Armitage brothers – Delon, Steffon and Guy – all overlapped at London Irish. The Tuilagis made a tremendous commitment to Leicester Tigers but only one trio briefly overlapped: Henry, Anitelea and Alesana, before Manu came along later to form a terrifying backline with Alesana.

Sale for years were able to pick the two terrorising twins, Jean-Luc and Dan, to bash sides into submission, with Robert then on hand to capitalise on the space they created.

“I think Rob hasn’t missed a game in the Premiership for, like, 80 games or something. He’s got a record,” Sanderson explains. “The other two, you know, are scary. If you haven’t got both playing you’ve certainly got one playing, and physically, you know, what they are around the park. So they’re pretty big shoes to fill, aren’t they? Especially with the kind of game model that we’ve played in recent years, they’ve been fundamental in terms of the gainline dominance the twins have. And Rob in terms of pulling the strings behind it.”

Jean-Luc was the first to depart last summer, offered a lucrative deal by Bordeaux-Bègles, the reigning European champions. So far, not exactly so good. Having injured his knee while away with South Africa during last year’s Rugby Championship, delaying his debut until January, Jean-Luc has not played since suffering a concussion against Bristol over two months ago. “We’re missing him a lot,” Yannick Bru, UBB’s coach, said this month. “He went off to play for the Springboks, which was quite unexpected, he broke his knee, and he suffered two concussions while with the Springboks. We’ve really had some bad luck with him; he could have brought us so much.”

Perhaps all it took was for one brother to leave in order for the rest to consider their own next steps. “It was probably the hardest decision I’ve had to make in my entire career. We spent so much time together,” Jean-Luc told the French press back in January.

Robert’s age, turning 33 this summer, was a factor in signing for Bayonne. “He’s on his last chapter of his career, potentially,” adds Sanderson. “He’s going to earn the most amount of money and all of that, which is important for his family and to experience life in France.”

A veteran player with added positional flexibility, too, after a joint decision made between player and Sale’s coaching staff a few years ago. “We’ve made a brilliant outside centre out of him together – me and him, because it was a joint decision – and he’s been able to partner up with [George] Fordy and it adds an extra element to his game, where he’s much more valuable as a squad player as well.”

With his twin brother gone and older brother heading to France, perhaps the decision for Dan was made a little easier. By heading to Bath he joins a powerhouse pack with extraordinary depth. “Our DNA is being tough to beat and Dan du Preez fits that mould perfectly,” was how Bath’s Johann van Graan put it.

When Jean-Luc left last summer, the messages wishing him well on social media all felt genuine, expressions of real gratitude. “Sale is a place that has given me and my family so much and most importantly, a place I now call home,” he wrote in his goodbye message. Sentiments no doubt shared by his two brothers ahead of their own departures. Sale have benefited from their talents, but as Sanderson notes, the players are better off for their time in Manchester.

“I’d like to think that we’ve helped them, as well. We’ve got Jean-Luc back into the Springboks team and he’s got a more lucrative contract out in Bordeaux. Same with Rob. Dan has done it for a different reason, I think, with JL leaving and Rob going. It’s perhaps a bit easier of a decision for him, to have a change in environment, a change of stimulus, which I think he needs in his career.

“So, I’d like to think that the contribution was both ways. Certainly the respect goes both ways. I’m sure of that.”