Sale Sharks director of rugby Alex Sanderson praised the influence of fly-half George Ford after the star steered his side into the Premiership final with a 21-13 win over Leicester Tigers on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The victory means Sale reach their first Premiership final in 17 years. It was a tight affair for most of the clash, with Ford\u2019s ever-impressive rugby intelligence shining through in key moments.<\/p>\n
Sanderson was pleased with how his team stuck to their processes and plans whilst even improving their execution as the game went on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are a special group, these boys. They had to drink deep from the well today,\u201d Sanderson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey stuck to the task, and George Ford drove that \u2013 a little pocket of calm amid the chaos.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to be physically up to the task; you need a heart, you have really got to want it. What more can you ask for?<\/p>\n
\u201cI am proud of how they stuck at it and just got better at the basics as the game went on.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the defending champions crashing out, there will be a new winner this season as Sale face Saracens in the final in a fortnight.<\/p>\n
Sanderson may have to deal with the loss of influential leader Ben Curry, who succumbed to a hamstring problem during the game.<\/p>\n
Curry is set to get a scan to determine the extent of the damage, but the coach does not expect him to return for the final.<\/p>\n
Sanderson added: \u201cHe will get a scan tomorrow. He is on crutches, and he got carried off. We will see tomorrow, but I doubt if he will make the final.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spent the major part of my life down there with those guys (at Saracens), but I am so engrained in this here that it feels like I have been here forever. It adds a little bit more spice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Leicester Tigers interim head coach Richard Wigglesworth admits his side just could not find a way to get an edge in a tight game.<\/p>\n
Wigglesworth said: \u201cIt was a close game, small margins. We just couldn\u2019t find the advantage to tip it in our favour.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe stuck in the contest, and we can\u2019t fault the spirit and fight in the group.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am incredibly proud to have been asked to lead this group. I am so grateful for how they (Leicester) have treated me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The side had to deal with the late withdrawal of Springbok Handre Pollard, who Wigglesworth says is struggling with a calf issue.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWe only made that call this morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cHandre hadn\u2019t trained for the last couple of training days. It was a calf issue, which is incredibly painful, but it can also clear up at a moment\u2019s notice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sale Sharks director of rugby Alex Sanderson praised the influence of fly-half George Ford after the star steered his side into the Premiership final with a 21-13 win over Leicester Tigers on Sunday. The victory means Sale reach their first Premiership final in 17 years. It was a tight affair for most of the clash,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}