Early on Saturday morning, Alex Sanderson gathered his squad at their Carrington training base to address the tragic news of Hyron Andrews’ death. The sudden passing of their former team-mate, 31, has rocked the sport but Sale’s mourning players had a match to play.
‘I personally found it difficult to get my own thoughts in order,’ revealed Sanderson, the club’s head coach, as he debriefed their Champions Cup defeat by Glasgow.
‘It’s my job to reframe and communicate, that’s what I get paid to do and I struggled, on both counts. We’ve got quite a structured three hour build up to the game. I addressed it as early in the day as I could so they could get on and concentrate on the job they had to do. The lads have been pulling together, not wanting to weaponize it but to do right by Hyron.
‘Very simply, that kind of news levels you. It puts into clear focus what is important and who is important. Hyron was very important to us and his family still are. Regardless of how traumatic it is and how devastating it is, we understand that the wheels still turn. Life carries on and kick off was at 1 o’clock, so we had to shift our focus towards that.’
Rugby players are competitive beasts and there was a collective desire to honour Andrews through their performance. The lock played 45 games for Sale. He moved back to South Africa with his young family during the summer, having signed for the Lions in Johannesburg. On Friday morning at the team hotels ahead of their game against La Rochelle.
‘How the lads started was a testament to how tight the group is,’ added Sanderson, who watched Ben Curry and Aron Read score to give Sale a 12-0 lead inside the opening 10 minutes.
Sale’s players cut emotional figures in their first match since former team-mate Hyron Andrews passed away
On Friday, it was reported that Andrews ad been found unresponsive in a shower at the Atalante-Relais Thalasso Hotel
Yet the next four tries came from Glasgow, who punished the ill-discipline that has stalked Sale through the opening rounds of their PREM campaign. Gus Warr was shown a yellow card for side entry at a maul and Tom Roebuck joined him in the sin-bin after tripping Kyle Steyn.
There are heavy expectations on Sale’s shoulders after they recruited Nicky Smith, Courtney Lawes, Joe Marchant and Alex Lozowski but here was more evidence that they are yet to click.
‘Looking at that game, there was a similar theme of poor concentration and ill-discipline around the middle third,’ said Sanderson. ‘We got away with it against Saracens, skin of our teeth against Harlequins and got punished today. That penny has to drop. The sooner it drops, the sooner we’ll be putting good teams away.
‘I don’t think the emotional levels of the lads affected that because we’ve seen it consistently over the last four weeks now. Gus putting his head in the maul… I don’t know quite what he was thinking. There were a couple of brain farts but that happens under pressure.
‘We analysed Glasgow and they are a multi-phase team who you have to defend for 20 or so phases against. We gave penalties away within those sets and they squeezed us. You can’t afford to give Glasgow that many entries or opportunities because they’re too good.’
Three of Glasgow’s tries came directly from lineouts. Sale’s pack were standoffish at the driving maul, while the bulk of Glasgow’s team joined the collective shove which has become increasingly difficult to stop.
Scottish scrum-half Jamie Dobie impressed on the wing and Glasgow’s intricate backline made gains out wide. In the Champions Cup, teams must now win by three tries to secure a bonus point, which meant the Scottish team never stopped attacking.
Both teams exchanged tries in the final quarter, but Glasgow doubled down on their late defensive stand to protect the bonus point.
Sale director Alex Sanderson admitted he struggled this week – and bemoaned his side’s performance here
‘It was like Test match rugby,’ said Sanderson. ‘If you were to put that bonus points system in the Premiership, only five of the 22 bonus points in the first three rounds would have been secured. Bonus points are harder to come by. We were chasing the game to try and get within three tries to deny them that bonus point. I think it’s a good initiative. I’d like to see it in the PREM.
‘We gave ourselves two or three chances to win that game. The difference between how clinical they were in the 22, how disciplined they were, led to the scoreline blowing out to 20 points. I don’t believe we were a 20 points worse side but that’s the fact that’s on the scoreboard.’
But as a black and white image of Andrews appeared on the big screens at the final whistle, the result suddenly fell back into perspective.
