Hodgson's back at the helm for Sale
Sale Sharks star Charlie Hodgson will finally return to the starting lineup this weekend after missing the previous two matches due to stubbing his toe in the opening round encounter with Leicester Tigers.
Oriol Ripol and Brent Cockbain also make their first starts of the new season with Welsh star Lee Thomas moving back into the centres to accomodate Hodgson at flyhalf.
Speaking ahead of the match, Director of Rugby Kingsley Jones said: “We are delighted to welcome back Charlie, although I would like to thank Lee Thomas who has done a great job for us at flyhalf in Charlie’s absence. We were very disappointed with last Friday’s performance and have talked about it as a group and worked hard in our preparation this week. We know what we have to do, but it won’t be easy against Worcester who are well coached by Mike Ruddock and have some quality players in their line up including Pat Sanderson and Sam Tuitupou.”
Sale Sharks have not won since their opening day victory over defending Guinness Premiership champions Leicester at Edgeley Park.
Some bad news for the Warriors this week saw No.8 Kai Horstmann being ruled out with an injury but they have good cover in the back row departement with Netani Talei coming in at the back of the scrum.
The Fiji international Talei will make his first start of the new season after featuring off the bench in the first three rounds of the new season.
Director of Rugby Mike Ruddock also makes a change in the front row with hooker Aleki Lutui starting the game and Chris Fortey moving to the bench.
Flyhalf Joe Carlisle has recovered from a knee injury to make the match squad for the first time this season and is named among the replacements alongside fit again prop Shaun Ruwers.
“We expect a backlash from Sale after the lost to Bath. They will have a few players back and I expect they would have had a rocket from my old friend Kingsley Jones. He will have impressed on them the need to get back to winning ways,” he said.
“They have a good record at Sixways Stadium and they be coming down here keen to put the record straight after last week.
“Our challenge is to turn that around. We have had a sequence of late in this fixture in that the away team wins so it’s about time we put a stop to that. We must front up and be more precise than we were against Wasps last weekend to get a result.”
The Teams
Worcester: 15 Chris Latham, 14 Marcel Garvey, 13 Alex Grove, 12 Sam Tuitupou, 11 Miles Benjamin, 10 Willie Walker, 9 Ryan Powell, 8 Netani Talei, 7 Pat Sanderson (captain), 6 Tom Wood, 5 Craig Gillies, 4 Greg Rawlinson, 3 Tevita Taumoepeau, 2 Aleki Lutui, 1 Matt Mullan
Replacements: 16 Adam Black, 17 Chris Fortey, 18 Shaun Ruwers, 19 Graham Kitchener, 20 Matt Cox, 21 Jonny Arr, 22 Joe Carlisle, 23 Rico Gear
Sale Sharks: 15 Nick Macleod, 14 Mark Cueto, 13 Mathew Tait, 12 Lee Thomas, 11 Oriol Ripol, 10 Charlie Hodgson, 9 Richard Wigglesworth, 8 Chris Jones, 7 David Seymour, 6 James Gaskell, 5 Dean Schofield (captain), 4 Brent Cockbain, 3 Eifion Roberts, 2 Mahonri Schwalger, 1 Andrew Sheridan
Replacements: 16 Marc Jones, 17 Jack Forster, 18 Gavin Kerr, 19 Neil Briggs, 20 David Tait, 21 Will Cliff, 22 Johnny Kennedy, 23 Chris Bell
Date: Saturday, 26 September
Venue: Sixways
Time: 16.00 (14.00 GMT)
Referee: TBC
