Welcome back to the Salford Stadium for our first home Gallagher Premiership fixture since the end of January. It’s felt like a long time away and everyone is chomping at the bit to run out in front of our home crowd and, after a good win against Newcastle last week, get back in the mix for the top four. 

Before I go on, I want to offer a big Manchester welcome to Phil Dowson and his Northampton Saints team. Saints have had, by their own standards, an up and down season and they didn’t perform as well as they would have expected against Leicester last weekend. That said, we’re facing a smart team and a proud team. I think our game at their ground earlier in the season came after they’d lost a couple and were smarting and they turned us over. So we know what threat they’ll possess this weekend. They’ll be smarting again, and they’ll be better this weekend because of what happened last Friday and we need to match them. 

Our reviews of last week’s win against Newcastle were pretty measured but we did focus on some of the things we did well and some of the things we have been working on while the Six Nations was on and our internationals were away. 

There was a confidence and excitement around some of the work we did with the ball in hand and our attack looked really sharp at times. In defence I thought we looked physical and aggressive but we know that against other teams with a greater attacking, transitional threat – like tonight’s opponents – we can’t give away so many opportunities to get back at us and our skill level and execution in the wider channels has to be better. 

We knew we had to start fast and I was really happy with the way we built the score but there were moments when we weren’t clinical enough. If we want to compete we need to execute and be far more clinical. 

But there were plenty of positives and it’s too easy to look at all the things we need to work on and not appreciate how good some of the lads were, especially some of the returning internationals. Fordy, by his own admission, said he feels like he’s had a pre-season. He’s come back feeling so fresh and he was brilliant. He’s not one to vent when he doesn’t play as much as he’d like, and he’s able to re-frame himself really quickly – that’s one of his superpowers. He just wants to play his socks off and show what England were missing. But his focus is no further than the weekend and the game coming up and he’s so good at that. In fact, he pulls me back when my focus goes a bit further down the line. 

But George wasn’t the only one back in on Friday. Tom Roebuck carried the momentum from his performance against Wales and he showed how powerful and skillful he is. Bevan and Asher were fantastic and Ben Curry topped all the stats chart, as he so often does. The biggest win for us is to make sure they come back in and can perform in a Sale shirt, and haven’t left a bit of them with England. They did that. Now it’s about them getting better and better. 

Obviously a number of our lads have put themselves in the conversation for the Lions tour this summer and that’s brilliant. It’s the pinnacle of the game and they’d have my vote! But I’m no Andy Farrell. 

This is the business end of the season and we know that we need to be at our very best to be in the top four come May 31. We’ve got six games left and it’s not far off being knock-out rugby. Our mentality is that we need to win them all but we know we to improve. We need to start performing and winning away from home and there’s a confidence here that we can do that. We know if we get our best players on the field consistently, we can beat anyone. 

I’m not on social media but I’m told that your reaction to our latest new signing, Jacques Vermeulen, has been really positive. I’m so glad because everyone at the club – me included – is really excited. Jacques has known the du Preez lads since they were kids and he’s someone I’ve always admired as a player. As a coach, he’s someone you always have to have a gameplan for because he’s that good. It was actually a fairly straightforward recruitment process because he’s such a top bloke and he was so excited about what we’re trying to do here and how he might fit into our game. The deal was agreed in the first meeting! 

But that’s all talk for next season. As I said, there’s plenty to play for this season and it starts for us tonight. I know you’ll play your part. 

Al