We must find another gear - Sanderson

NO side accumulated more points than Sale after the break for the Six Nations last season, but Alex Sanderson says they will need to be better again to make the play-offs for the fourth time in five years.

- PAUL REES

The Sharks' late surge took them to third in the table, but they lost at Bath in the semi-final a year after being pipped by Saracens at Twickenham.

"It was a good end of the season and we want to take off from there, but the game has moved on and we have to be better again," said Sanderson, Sale's director of rugby. "We changed our mindset in that block of matches in terms of attack having been too pragmatic.

"That will be our intent again, how can we get the ball into George Ford's hands a bit more. We had a bit of a crisis last January having been top of the table over Christmas, not helped by a bad run of injuries.

"We challenged the players about what they were giving and had some honest feedback. They set up a senior group to talk to me about how we could make improvements to the programme and we gave them input from the coaches. It was collaborative based on a high degree of trust.