Sale Africa

I have been watching the the highlights of teh Sale -Saracens game, noticing how many SA names in the side I looked at the squad, I counted probably 8 SA sounding names in the squad, therefore possibly more, Ross sounds SA as well.

Saracens took massive stick for having four or five Saffers in or around the first XV a few years ago, why aren't Sale taking a similar amount for being even more SA based?

In part because in the past Sale have been a club whose young talent has been plundered by other clubs.

Disappointed this didn’t turn out to be a Toto thread.

Saracens ripped the contracts up for lots of pros in order to sign their South African contingent. Left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

Sale have tried to build around the young talent they have produced and managed to keep. There's a long list of talent either produced or rebuilt at Sale that's then been pilfered by bigger clubs.

Yep, just watched the highlights as well, those du Preez brothers and Akker are bloody good players

Eejit wrote:Disappointed this didn’t turn out to be a Toto thread.

You heard the drums?

LondonTiger wrote:

Eejit wrote:Disappointed this didn’t turn out to be a Toto thread.

You heard the drums?

They were echoing tonight.

Old Man wrote:Yep, just watched the highlights as well, those du Preez brothers and Akker are bloody good players

Yep, how good would SA franchises be if they could keep all their forwards in the country...

mikey_dragon wrote:

Old Man wrote:Yep, just watched the highlights as well, those du Preez brothers and Akker are bloody good players

Yep, how good would SA franchises be if they could keep all their forwards in the country...

Dunno the Bulls had a monster pack last season before it got picked apart and didn't exactly set the world alight.

Not just the players that get poached the best coaches do as well.

Bulls have had only 3 good seasons from what I can remember, so they don't exactly set the world alight. It would certainly strengthen SA rugby as a whole if they kept all those plays over a 3 year period, I think they would start to dominate then. Their amount of quality lock forwards is unreal.

There does seem to be a lot of SA DnA at Sale at the moment - there there is also plenty of SA talent sprinkled throughout the Prem too.
There is more than a smattering of Akermans influence at Gloucester - his Kid, Mostert, Grobler, Ruan Dreyer, Corne Fourie, Jaco Kriel, Franco Marais
Quins have just signed a couple - a centre and a prop
I am sure there are plenty more at other clubs - Reinach at Saints etc.

I guess the point is that the majority of Sales SA contingent are regular 1st teamers.....also with de Jager on the books and not played yet.