MATCHDAY PROGRAMME | Sale Sharks v Bristol Bears

SALE SHARK S V BRISTOL BE ARS Friday 5th Januar y, KO: 19:45

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A WORD FROM THE A XE H A P P Y N E W Y E A R T O Y O U A L L F R O M E V E R Y O N E AT S A L E SHARKS. I DON’T KNOW ABOUT NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS, BUT I P R O M I S E Y O U T H AT E V E R Y S I N G L E P E R S O N AT T H E C L U B I S DETERMINED TO MAKE 2024 A YEAR TO REMEMBER. That all starts with tonight’s game and the visit of a team who on their day are as good as any in our league. Pat Lam has built a really exciting Bristol Bears team that, for a coaching team, is really tricky to prepare for because they don’t seem to have a consistent strategy in terms of how they get themselves into certain positions around the pitch. Before our game earlier in the season they were kicking a lot – the most kicks and the most metres kicked in the league in fact.

Since then, there’s been a definite shift again back to a more running-focused style, so it’s very hard to peg them and hard for us to know exactly what sort of team we’ll face tonight.

Either way they’re a very, very dangerous team. They beat the most defenders, get the most offloads and they’ve got some very big, X-factor runners with ball in hand, like van Rensburg. Chuck in guys like Kyle Sinckler and Steven Luatua and we know we’re going to have to play well to win. Results haven’t gone their way but I have no doubt they’ll find

AJ MACGINTY WAS A MASSIVE PLAYER FOR US AND WE KNOW EXACTLY HOW GOOD HE IS. HE’S A MASSIVE ENERGY GIVER 5

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a vein of form and put a winning run together. I just hope that doesn’t start tonight.

Among the Bears starting XV is a player who is well known to us all here, and who is always welcome back at the Salford Stadium. AJ MacGinty was a massive player for us and we know exactly how good he is. He’s a massive energy giver, he’s really good defensively and he offers loads in attack with his kicking game too.

He’s a big leader for them and we’ll welcome him back here with a few strong shoulders no doubt.

We want to impose our game on the Bears, like I felt we did in the first half against Northampton, but not the second. There is frustration at that result last week, and how the middle 20 minutes of the second half went, but we feel that if a couple of big moments and big opportunities, had gone our way, we would have felt a lot different and you have got to weight up the frustration against the logical and emotional reflection of the performance. As a whole, I was happy with the growth that we have shown.

We know it’s about doing it for 80 minutes and that’s what we’re going after tonight.

We’ve got four games before the break, including a trip to Cape Town and a game against the European champions. It’s a chance to make a real statement and I want us to embrace it and make it the best month at the start of a brilliant year.

This team has so much potential and to me, it all still feels really fresh and new. We haven’t scratched the surface in terms of how good we can be, but everyone is working so hard to get there. We’re enjoying coming into work every day and that’s such a good place to be as we look ahead to the next 12 months and beyond.

I love it here and it doesn’t feel like a job. That’s something I don’t take for granted.

Enjoy the game, Al

Tonight’s game is our first of 2024 and our last home game in the league before the Six Nations break and we want to make sure we put on a show. We have spoken about the next month and our wider aspirations and we know it’s a massive chance for us to set ourselves up for a real crack at the business end of the season.

I know we’re not too far from Blue Monday, but I want our lads – and you all – to be really excited about where we are and what’s to come.

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CAPTAIN ENERGY AMONG THE MANY SUCCESS STORIES OF A STRONG START TO THE 23/24 SE A SON HA S BEEN THE RE-EMERGENCE OF A FRONT-ROW STALWART WHO HA S PL AYED ALMOST 300 G AMES FOR THE CLUB AND MADE HIS DEBUT IN THE L A ST SHARK S G AME AT EDGELE Y PARK .

Ross Harrison has been a club constant for more than ten years and while the media’s eyes have been drawn to the development of young props like Asher Opoku-Fordjour, the 31-year-old ‘Energy Captain’ has been turning back the clock and delivering 80-minute performances.

“Asher is very, very good but he’s so young,” he said. “I don’t think it will be long until he’s involved with England.

It seems like you only need a run of five or six good games as a young player to get a call-up.”

What about a 31-year-old?

“It would be mad if something like that happened but who knows,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d be playing 80 mins every week this season but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

“That’s why it’s so important to keep fit and keep training even when maybe you’re not going to be playing.

You never know when an injury could

IF SOMETHING GOOD HAPPENS, CELEBRATE IT AND THEN GET BACK ON TRACK AND FOCUS ON THE NEXT JOB 9

happen and when your chance could come. You need to be ready to take it.

“I think the desire and the motivation to keep working hard is in me. Even for the last couple of years when I haven’t been playing as much as I wanted, it was still a habit and a passion, never a chore.

“Everyone is motivated by different things. For me I just love being a competitor and a professional athlete.

I love the day-to-day grind and like with any job, if you go in every day and are happy to just be ‘ok’ then you need a new job.

“When you’re not playing you just have to keep the faith and keep working. Rugby is fickle – you can be tomorrow’s chip paper pretty quickly.

“I’m 31 and I think when anyone gets into their 30s they probably start thinking about what comes next.

You’re on borrowed time. But I think in the front-row maybe you get better with age.

“Getting older does shift your mentality. I know I haven’t got loads of years left here and I think that makes me more grateful than maybe when I was in my 20s. We’re training really well at the moment and Al has given us the tools and created the environment for us all to be the best we can be.

“The focus we have in training is coming across in games. Everyone knows their own roles – not just on the pitch, but across the squad and the club.”

Speaking of roles, Ross’s has become so much more than simply ‘loosehead

prop’. Since his re-emergence into the first team picture Al has been so impressed that he’s made him ‘Energy Captain’, responsible for driving the emotion that this squad thrives on.

Speaking ahead of the Northampton game, Al said Ross was playing the best rugby he’d seen since he joined the club, and he praised him for his dedication on and off the field.

“When Si McIntyre and Bevan Rodd came in he had to bite his lip and to a degree, swallow his pride and get on with it,” Al said. “He kept on working hard in the gym and he’s the first in and the last out.

“Then he got his chance and he played so well. I just said “wow”. He’s found a new lease of life.

“We focus a lot on energy exchange and how we are able to manage our energy in the ebbs and flows of positive and negative outcomes on the pitch. I’ve made Ross captain of energy and he has been driving that in the whole squad.

He’s got a really important leadership role.”

So what does Ross make of his new role?

“We’ve got an energy crew – Arron Reed, Tommy Taylor, Ernie, and myself – and it’s our job to keep everyone’s focus,” he said. “If something good happens, celebrate it and then get back on track and focus on the next job. If something bad happens, focus on the next job. It has to be authentic though and I think it is.

11

“We set targets at the start of the season but I think looking week by week or even day by day is a much better idea. Then you make sure you’re present and enjoying it as much as possible.”

“The older you get, you see a bigger picture and it’s less about your own role and more about the team. I know my role here has changed and I want to play my part, whatever that might involve.”

2023 was a big year in the Harrison household as Ross and wife Lucy welcomed twin girls into the clan. So has being a dad changed the way he approaches his rugby?

“I think it has changed the way I look at everything,” he said. “One of my big goals at the start of the season was to have the girls watch me play and we managed to do that at the start of the season.

“I think you realise that there’s more to life than work or rugby and you understand that you have a big influence on two little girls. It’s a huge responsibility.

“When I have a bad day at training I go home and ten mins later I’m playing with a toy kitchen or reading the girls a story. It alters your outlook on life in a really healthy way.”

Ross didn’t play at Twickenham in May as your Sharks fell just short in the Premiership final. And while the day was a memorable one for the lads who were involved, for those who missed out on selection, it was a day tinged with sadness.

“Getting to the final was incredible for the club and it was a great day for the lads who played,” he added. “But it did hurt. It’s human nature to want to play and to not be picked was really tough at the time to deal with.

love, and I’m still loving it. I get such a buzz from the big games, like the one recently against Stade or Sarries before Christmas, and I’m not planning on stopping any time soon.

“So yeah, maybe I’ve got unfinished business this season.

“I still get up in the morning and look forward to coming in. I want to smash training every day and while I feel like that, I’ll keep putting the work in.”

“That drives me on, plus I’m not far off reaching 300 games for the club I

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CAPTAIN (C)URRY ON BEHALF OF ALL THE SHARK S PL AYERS C AN I WISH YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY NE W YE AR . I HOPE YOU HAD A GRE AT CHRISTMA S TOO. WE GOT FOUR VERY REL A X ING DAYS OFF BUT THAT ’S A DISTANT MEMORY NOW – IT GOES BY SO QUICK LY !

Our focus is all back on the rugby now and we’ve got a really exciting month ahead with two massive Premiership games and two games in the Champions Cup. It’s a great opportunity for us to set up the year and make sure we’re in a good position going into the international break.

Bristol are first up and we know how big a challenge they are going to provide. They can be tough to analyse because they do change their style, but defensively especially, it’s always a big challenge. Last weekend Saints got on top of us when they sped the game up and we didn’t react or work as hard as we should have done to combat that.

We know that if we get that wrong again, Bristol are a really dangerous side and they’ll punish us.

Bristol have AJ MacGinty back at flyhalf tonight and as most of you will know, he’s someone we know plenty about. AJ was a big part of our club for many years and he was a really popular lad in the dressing room. He’s a top player and I’m sure he’ll be fired up to come back and play at the Salford Stadium.

IT’S A REALLY EXCITING MONTH AND A BIG PART OF THAT WILL BE THE TRIP TO CAPE TOWN FOR THE CHAMPIONS CUP GAME AGAINST THE STORMERS. 15

We were all really disappointed to come away from Northampton with a defeat because I think we got a lot of the big stuff right, especially defensively. To keep them out in the first half was massive but in the second half we didn’t get some of the smaller details right. The stuff that Al calls the ‘sand between the big rocks.’

It was always going to be a tough game but those little details are often the difference between winning and losing.

When the game got to 14-17 I don’t think we reacted well enough to the way the momentum was changing and as a leadership group, we’ve looked at how we could have managed that situation better.

Like I said, it’s a really exciting month and a big part of that will be the trip to Cape Town for the Champions Cup game against the Stormers. Rugby is always the main focus for us but after

what seems like months of training in the wind and rain, it’ll be so good to have a change of scenery. They’ve got a class team full of Springboks and it’s going to be a proper test, but one that we’ll attack with everything we’ve got.

Looking away from Sale, the Six Nations is looming large and I would love to be involved. After World Cups you do tend to see some new players come into squads and there will be loads of players thinking they’ve got a big opportunity. It’ll be interesting to see who’s involved but I hope I’m doing enough for Sale to put my name in the frame.

We’ve got a few lads hoping to be involved with their international sides but we all know that club form comes first and that’s why we know we have to put in some big performances, starting tonight.

Enjoy the game, Ben

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FROM THE SHARK TANK H A P PY N E W Y E A R F E L L OW S H A R K S FA N S A N D I S N ’ T I T G O O D T O B E B AC K AT H O M E S O S O O N I N T O 2 0 2 4 !

We’re hoping to get this year off to a flyer after a 2023 to remember, with a Premiership final, big European games and plenty of success on and off the field to look back on.

It was a great win at home last time out against Sarries and a fantastic atmosphere in a packed out stadium – exactly the sort of thing we want to repeat into the New Year. It was certainly the most one-sided two point battering we’ve ever seen of any team, let alone the champions, and it gave us a little bit of revenge for last season’s final. The margin of victory absolutely could have been more and it was a shame to miss out on the bonus point, but despite the close scoreline it was very rarely in doubt and sent us all off into Christmas happy and confident.

We then went down to Franklin’s Gardens to face a resurgent Northampton team at home – a real tough ask for any side and at another packed out stadium, this time a little less favourable towards the Sharks.

Despite that, we started really well, and after a 7-0 half time lead turned into a 14-0 lead on 48 minutes it was looking like the opportunity for a big away win

was on the cards. Unfortunately fatigue (and probably some home advantage) set in in the final quarter and a promising performance turned into a disappointing defeat, sending Northampton top of the table and leaving us in a respectable 3rd place.

It’s not the worst place to be – we’ve certainly been in tougher places in the past, but with just three points separating 1st and 6th it means we remain in a very tight tussle for the top four. Great for the neutral we’re sure, but as Sale fans we were hoping to be a few points further clear of the chasing pack!

All of that context makes tonight’s game a hugely important one nothing less than a win will do and a bonus point to boot would be ideal.

We welcome a Bristol team who have had a tough season so far, but it’s a team packed full of very talented players who can score from anywhere on the field. That makes the challenge tougher, and no doubt we can expect a fired up Bears team, but this is also a Sale team looking to right the wrongs of last week’s loss and so we have every faith we’ll be seeing a winning performance tonight.

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Enjoy the game and here’s to a great 2024 for everyone involved with Sale Sharks!

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