Joe Carpenter edged out Harry Porter in the Premier League semi-finals against Leicester earlier this month. Photo: Shutterstock/Tim Williams
The last time Sale Sharks won the Premier League, they did it with a cornerback from Yorkshire. This is where the similarity seems to end. Jason Robinson entered the 2005-06 season as a World Cup winner while Joe Carpenter started his Billesley Common campaign playing for the RFC sale against Molseley.
From National One, Carpenter made the Premier League team of the year and will start at Twickenham with Alex Good, who is starting his ninth final in his storied career. “It really came out of nowhere,” Carpenter said. Except he's not.
Carpenter's appearance this season owes a lot to his persistence and dedication to Alex Sanderson, but no one at the Sharks was surprised to see the 21-year-old use his a chance is as sure as a high ball.
«From someone who has an outside perspective, I feel like everyone knew what he was capable of and what he could do, but for you, I think it was just injuries,» said Tom Roebuck, who lives with Carpenter in an apartment. “He had two years where he just got injured to go out on loan, break it, and then get injured again. Everyone knew that he had the ability, he just had to get on the field and show it. When it happened, it wasn't really a shock because we knew it was going to be special.»
Carpenter and Roebuck weren't always friends. At youth level they played against each other for Yorkshire and Cheshire. “He was a talkative little asshole,” says Roebuck, who was already in Sale's books. There was no direct route for Carpenter, however, to get professional rugby on the roster of the Yorkshire Carnegie Academy, which was closing. “I was lucky to get a place here, but a lot of guys didn't,” Carpenter said. «This put a lot of them in a dead end for several years, which was a great shame.»
Carpenter «under the flag of Yorkshire»
Like Roebuck, who has attracted interest in both England and Scotland, Carpenter also considers himself a Yorkshire and England dual-qualifier and his development continues to be a source of pride for Ben Lazenby, his former academy manager. «Even if he's in a Sale jersey, people on the street see him as a Yorkshire player and a model for the boys around,» Lazenby said. «At Twickenham he flies the flag of Yorkshire.»
The «arch-enemies» on both sides of the Pennines now form an important part of the young and northern identity of Sale that Sanderson is building. There is also a South African contingent — just like the winning side in 2006 had a Gallic element — but they were united in the melting pot of Manchester.
«You can say it on the field,» Carpenter said. “There were times when we had to miss attempts, and the boys got stuck and scored the ball. You wouldn't do it if you didn't like playing for the club.»
Carpenter, who has been badly injured, readily admits he would have told you to «make one» if you had predicted he would start in the Premier League final when he went out for an RFC sale in front of several hundred people. . The club's director of rugby, Jonathan Keep, had no doubt that it would be a matter of time before he made his breakthrough. «He just had this fearless quality that's pretty rare in these young players,» Kip said. «He's fearless under the high ball, but he's also fearless when he comes up with his opportunity.»
«I was thrilled to see what I was like against Hogg and Steward»
The opportunity finally presented itself as he started the Premier League Cup tie before injuries to Luke James and Jason Woodward opened the door for him to start Premier League games against Exeter and Leicester. “When I first got this opportunity, I was in a complete stupor,” said Carpenter. “In the first game, I played Stuart Hogg, the guy I grew up with watching some pretty unusual things. Then a couple of weeks later I played Freddie Steward. I was very excited to see what I was like against those boys.”
Not every Premier League manager is as ready to throw a youngster into a dead end as Sanderson, but in his opinion, not trusting them would be a big risk. “No one really believed in them, saw their potential, and pushed them to strive for it,” Sanderson said. “It's not hard for me to do it. What is the alternative; crush them and tell them they're good for nothing? No, every day I tell them that they are good and that they can get better. Every day I tell them what I think, which is that these guys are as good as everyone else.”
There aren't many defenders with higher quality or experience than the Saracen trio of Hood and Sean Maitland. and Max Malins against Sale's trio of Carpenter, Roebuck and Arron Reid, who would all start their first match at Twickenham. However, as with everything else, Carpenter remains fearless as he seeks to emulate Robinson and the 2006 sell-off.
«They have experience, but it doesn't always matter,» Carpenter said. “We want to create a legacy that we can truly belong to. We don't know much about the 2006 final — at least not about me — but knowing that we've won the title before and the names of the guys who competed in it is a big incentive for us to do it again.»< /p>
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