Alex Sanderson has called on his Sale Sharks team to back up last week’s famous win at Bristol with another big performance at Gloucester this weekend.
The Sharks Director of Rugby said he doesn’t want the 38-0 Ashton Gate win to be seen as a ‘fluke’ and he said his players are motivated to make another statement at Kingsholm.
He said: “Proving people wrong is a motivator for me and it’s a motivator for the group. Having not been the most fashionable team in the past, it’s about us making a statement.
“I’d like to think the experts who watch us would have backed us to have a resurgence with a full squad, which is what we have now. But we need to cement that and back it up and make sure we’re in the top four before we go back into Europe.
“I don’t want people to think last week was a fluke.
“We know the Premiership is highly competitive and we know that if you have a slight let off in your mentality, that equates to a large differential in the scoreboard.
“Christmas time, with injuries, illness, the number of games, the white noise all has an impact. Sometimes as a coaching group you can get it wrong, but I think we got it spot on last week. We only had Christmas Day off so we didn’t have time to relax – we just stayed on it.
“This week is not a cut and paste job. It’s not rinse and repeat. There was loads to motivate us last week and we need to find that again this week.
“The best players and the best teams back up one performance with another. They have consistent intensity week in, week out and we need to find that again.
“Gloucester will pose a really big attacking threat and it’s another big challenge for us. They have the best maul in the league and they’re hyper-aggressive at the breakdown.
“When they play at home, in front of the Shed they seem to grow another leg and there’s a lot we’ll need to get right in attack and defence.”
Much of the praise following the win over Pat Lam’s side was directed at Sharks’ new defence coach Byron McGuigan, and Alex said the clarity brought by ‘the Horse’ has made a big impact.
He said: “The lads are going into games with greater intent because they’ve got more clarity and there’s a higher level of ‘buy-in’.
“Byron is one of the first into the training ground in the morning and he’s one of the last to leave. He’s working really hard and he’s pouring everything of himself into this position to make us a really good defensive team.
“The lads see how much he’s putting into it and they want to work hard for him.”
“He’s stressed some of the technical aspects that marry up to an effective line speed. But the want and desire to get off the line, to get set, to work hard and to put your body in harm’s way is the mental aspect. Byron is managing to do both the technical side and mental side really well.”
