Manu Tuilagi and Sam Hill are set to make their Sale Sharks debuts in a squad that contains four World Cup finalists as #RugbyReturns tomorrow night at the Twickenham Stoop – Live on BT Sport 2 Kick-Off 7:45pm
Sale Sharks Director of Rugby Steve Diamond has named the 23-man squad that will travel south to face Harlequins tomorrow evening in the highly anticipated return of the Gallagher Premiership.
Diamond names new signings Manu Tuilagi and Sam Hill in the starting line up alongside World Cup winner Lood de Jager, who will make his full club debut at the Stoop on Friday Night.
Coenie Oosthuizen, Akker van der Merwe and Will-Griff John make up a heavyweight Sharks front row for the trip to Twickenham, with an all-South African combination of Jean-Luc du Preez and Lood de Jager providing power and experience behind them.
Club Captain Jono Ross resumes his usual position at blindside flanker and is joined in a powerful back-row by internationals Tom Curry and Daniel du Preez.
World Cup winner Faf de Klerk makes his first start for the club since January, after recovering from a knee strain and will form a familiar partnership with Rob du Preez as the Sharks kick things off in London on Friday night.
New signings Sam Hill and Manu Tuilagi are named together for the first time in a powerful midfield and have an experienced back three of Byron McGuigan, Marland Yarde and Simon Hammersley outside them.
Sharks Director of Rugby Steve Diamond was excited to back to action during his midweek media session, speaking ahead of the game, he said: “It’s fantastic to finally be back into the premiership, we have trained for a long time now and I think everyone at the club is chomping at the bit to get the season started again. I’m sure it will be a great occasion on Friday as we get things underway against Quins, ‘Gussy’ [Paul Gustard] has a full squad to select from this time around, which is a stark contrast to when they visited us in January, so we will have to be firing on all cylinders to have a chance of pulling off a result away from home.”
