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The profile · researched 26 September 2026
Salford's Sharks rebuild: Sale enter the franchise era with Courtney Lawes and a defence to fix
Sale Sharks are English rugby's northern outpost — champions in 2006, top-three finishers in three of the last four seasons, then seventh with a leaking defence in 2025-26. Twelve signings and a reshuffled coaching room start again at the CorpAcq Stadium, with ten home dates on sale.
From Heywood Road to the edge of the Ship Canal
The club was founded in 1861 as Sale Football Club, which makes it one of the oldest rugby organisations still playing. It moved to Heywood Road in 1905 and stayed for almost a century. G.A.M. Isherwood became the first Sale man to play Test rugby in 1910, appearing in all three matches of that year's British tour of South Africa; the 1930s brought England, Welsh and Scottish internationals through the gate, and a Middlesex Sevens win followed in 1936. Between 1972 and 1987 Sale went unbeaten in the county cup.
Professionalism nearly finished them. The Sharks name was adopted in 1999, the same period in which the club was rescued from financial collapse and likely relegation by the Cheshire businessman Brian Kennedy. Kennedy's money moved them out of Heywood Road to Edgeley Park in Stockport in 2003, then to the newly built Salford City Stadium in Barton-upon-Irwell in 2012 — a 12,000-seat ground shared with the rugby league side Salford Red Devils and known for years as the AJ Bell Stadium.
Kennedy's sixteen years ended in 2016, when CorpAcq Ltd, led by Simon Orange, bought the club. That relationship produced the current name over the door: the ground became the CorpAcq Stadium from the start of the 2025-26 season under a multi-year deal with the Altrincham-based group.
The one that counted
Sale won the RFU Championship in 1993-94 and have been in the top flight without interruption since. European silverware came first: the Parker Pen Shield in 2002, then the European Challenge Cup in 2005, won 27-3 against Pau.
The league title arrived on 27 May 2006. Sale had won 16 of their 22 regular-season matches to finish two clear at the top, beat Wasps 22-12 in the semi-final, and then took Leicester apart 45-20 on a wet Twickenham afternoon. Mark Cueto, Magnus Lund, Oriol Ripol and Chris Mayor scored the tries; Charlie Hodgson kicked six penalties, a conversion and a drop goal. Jason Robinson and the director of rugby Philippe Saint-André lifted the trophy, and Sale became the first northern club to win a Premiership final, ending three straight titles for Wasps.
Since then the trophy cabinet has added the Premiership Rugby Cup in 2019-20. Alex Sanderson arrived as director of rugby in January 2021 and produced the club's strongest sustained run in fifteen years: runners-up in 2022-23, third in 2023-24, third again in 2024-25 with a semi-final. It is that run, not 2006, that set the expectation the current squad is measured against.
The season that came apart
2025-26 was the worst league finish in seven years. Sale played 18, won 5, lost 13 and finished seventh with 36 points, scoring 524 and conceding 602 — around a third more points than the previous campaign, and the third-worst defensive record in the division. They never won two league games in a row at any point in the season. Northampton Saints won the title.
The collapses were the story rather than the losing. At Newcastle they led 35-10 at half-time and lost. In Europe on 17 January 2026 they were beaten 77-7 by Stade Toulousain in Toulouse, an eleven-try defeat that sealed the French club's own qualification for the round of 16 and ended Sale's. Champions Cup qualification for this season was only secured in June.
The response was structural. Head coach Marco Bortolami and defence coach Byron McGuigan both left. Sanderson stayed as director of rugby, Joe Ford is now listed as head coach, Dorian West took the forwards and Mike Forshaw was given permanent charge of the defence. Sanderson's own summary of the year was that it was one the club would be better for.
Twelve in, eight out, and a league with new rules
Sale signed twelve players for 2026-27 and lost eight. The marquee arrival was confirmed on 7 April 2026: Courtney Lawes, 37, on a one-year deal from Brive, a lock and back-rower with 105 England caps across four World Cups, five Lions Test appearances over two tours, close to 300 games for Northampton and the captaincy of their 2024 title win. Around him came Joe Marchant from Stade Français, Alex Lozowski, the Wales loosehead Nicky Smith — rated by RugbyPass as arguably the best in that position in the Premiership last season — the tighthead Tomas Francis, Christ Tshiunza, the Fijian Drua back-rower Elia Canakaivata, Ponipati Loganimasi, Cebo Dlamini, JJ Scheepers, David Opoku-Fordjour, and the 27-year-old scrum-half Xavier Roe from the Chiefs, who toured with the All Blacks XV in 2025. Raffi Quirke, Dan and Rob du Preez, Hyron Andrews, Willgriff John, Obi Ene, James Harper and Nye Thomas all left.
The men's squad was confirmed on 21 September 2026: 57 players, 35 forwards and 22 backs, with the South African flanker Ernst van Rhyn continuing as club captain. RugbyPass scored the group 75 out of 100, marking the back row at 9.5 with the Curry twins available and Lawes, Jacques Vermeulen and Canakaivata behind them, while flagging hooker depth and full-back cover as thin. Rugby World predicted fifth at odds of 22-1; other previews put the realistic range at third to fifth.
The competition has changed shape too. The RFU approved reforms on 27 February 2026 that replaced automatic promotion and relegation with a criteria-based expansion and demotion model, so demotion now requires a stronger, financially viable replacement. Ten clubs contest the league: Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Gloucester, Harlequins, Leicester, Newcastle Red Bulls, Northampton, Sale and Saracens. TNT Sports carries the season for a fourteenth consecutive year, with seven matches free-to-air on ITV.
The 2026-27 diary
Pre-season ran at Carrington and was followed by two PREM Rugby Cup fixtures. The first, at home to Bath on 6 September 2026, ended 50-28: Tom Roebuck scored inside three minutes from a Joe Carpenter kick, Bath went 14-5 up, and Sale then ran in seven unanswered tries, Carpenter taking a hat-trick from full-back and setting up Roe's score.
The league campaign opens at home to Bristol Bears on Saturday 26 September 2026 at 5.30pm, live on TNT Sports, on the first weekend of the new season. Saracens away follows on 4 October. Round four is Derby Weekend and brings the northern fixture against Newcastle Red Bulls. Exeter visit on Sunday 6 December, Gloucester on Boxing Day, Bath on 29 March 2027 and Saracens on 19 April 2027. The season ends with semi-finals between the top four and a final at Twickenham on 19 June 2027.
Sale are in Pool One of the Investec Champions Cup: Glasgow Warriors at home on Saturday 17 October at 1pm, Leinster away in Dublin on 12 December, Clermont Auvergne at home on Sunday 10 January 2027, and Pau away at the Stade du Hameau on 16 January. The top three in each pool plus the four best remaining records reach the round of 16. Home cup dates also include Bristol on 6 November, Exeter on 13 November and Gloucester on 12 February, all at 7.45pm.
The show, now
A Sale home match is 80 minutes in two halves with an interval, but the club builds a four-hour afternoon around it. For the Bristol opener on 26 September 2026, kick-off 5.30pm, the fanzone by the West Stand opened at 3pm with wood-fired pizza, burgers and hot dogs, the Batala drumline, a live singer, a Speed Cage and Tackle O'Meter inflatable, a virtual driving range and face painting, plus a HerGameToo activation handing out giveaways. Turnstiles open 90 minutes before kick-off — 4pm for a 5.30 start — with security checks under Martyn's Law, and the squad arrives at the players' entrance outside the West Stand at roughly the same time, with supporters asked to come early for it. Players appear at the Ruck Truck between 4.30pm and 5pm for photographs; the first 500 children through the gate get a free gift, and the club shop runs 50 per cent off selected stock. There is no general parking on site: off-site spaces are booked through salesharksparking.co.uk, and five matchday shuttles run from Stockport, Altrincham and Sale, the Trafford Centre, Shudehill and the LSE park and ride. Dedicated away zones are sold for the bigger visits, Leicester among them last season. Tickets stay on sale up to kick-off, online or at the gate, and the ground holds 12,000, so a full house is loud without being distant from the pitch.
Researched from en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · rugbyworld.com · rugbypass.com · salesharks.com · salesharks.com
Pictures
Photographs from Wikimedia Commons, credited
Clément Bucco-Lechat · CC BY-SA 3.0
