George Ford claims ‘it’s on us’ as Sale Sharks bounce back while Joe Marler issues stark message for Harlequins hierarchy
George Ford put a smile back on the face of Alex Sanderson and then told his Sale boss to stop beating himself up for the club’s heaviest ever home league defeat.
Ford scored 17 points as Sharks beat Harlequins 52-33 on Saturday to all but seal Champions Cup qualification and turn the page on last week’s 85-19 “embarrassment” against Saracens.
The England fly-half admitted even sticking eight tries on Quins could not lessen the pain of the 13 they allowed Sarries at their CorpAcq Stadium.
“It’s a scar, a proper scar,” he told Planet Rugby. “You remember games for the good, don’t you? You also remember a few for being real bad. That will always be one of those. It was a horror show.”
But at the end of a week in which Sanderson took responsibility for the humiliation and faced calls to quit as head coach, Ford insisted the blame belonged elsewhere.
“The only reason that happened was down to the players and our choice of whether to want to do the tough stuff, the stuff that requires no talent: whether to dig in for each other, for the club, for the coaches, for the owners, for everyone.
“We all made wrong and poor choices against Sarries. Consistently. And that’s why it ended up at 85. I genuinely don’t think it was anything to do with Al and the coaches. In fact, I know it wasn’t. It’s on us as players.”
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Ironman likely out for the season
Fuelled by the humiliation, Sale outlasted Quins at the Stoop, coming from behind with four unanswered tries in the final quarter. They did so after losing Rob du Preez to a torn hamstring.
The South African centre, nicknamed “Ironman”, has started 88 consecutive PREM matches, dating back to the start of 2022. Headed for Bayonne this summer, he is unlikely to play again for the Sharks.
“It doesn’t make up for last week, nothing makes up for last week,” Ford said. “I don’t think you ever get over that. What it does is give us a bit of a reference point to hopefully kick on for the rest of the season.
“We can’t make the play-offs, we just got knocked out of Europe. So the motivation of actually achieving something this year is not there. We had to strip it back and find personal motivation: who we want to be as a team, the improvements we can make day to day and week to week to put us in a better position for next season.
“We’ve got some great players coming in the summer [Courtney Lawes, Joe Marchant, Alex Lozowski, Nicky Smith] and we don’t want to wait for them to arrive before we start again. We want to get a jump start on that.
“And then there’s the lads leaving. That could potentially be Rob’s last game for us, coming off as he did with a hamstring. He’s done amazing things for this club. For someone like him, you don’t want to go out with a whimper, losing every week.”
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“Some of the upper hierarchy need to do the honourable thing”
While Sale put an 11-point buffer between them and the final Champions Cup spot, Quins are four games from missing out. For a club boasting England stars Marcus Smith, Cadan Murley, Alex Dombrandt and Chandler Cunningham-South, that is some under-achievement.
Boos rang out around the Stoop as Sale pulled clear in the final quarter. Many supporters left before the end, some taking to social media to voice dissatisfaction.
Former Quins star Joe Marler, at the game to support Joe Launchbury on his final home outing for the club, tweeted: “1st time back last the Stoop since retiring. Feel for the fans. Shame. Think some of the upper hierarchy need to do the honourable thing this summer.”
Season ticket holder Daniel Carr responded by asking the Celebrity Traitors star’s opinion on the club conducting a “long coaching search only to end up with the same bloke [Jason Gilmore] overseeing this terrible season who gave up in the league in December by his own admission and a performance director [Robbie Deans] who is going to do 80% of his job on zoom?”
Via his X account, Marler gave a one-word reply. “Ridiculous”.
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