Alex Sanderson has described Sunday’s play-off clash against Leicester as “a game of grand magnitude” as Sale Sharks target a first Gallagher Premiership final appearance since 2006.

Sale beat Leicester 45-20 at Twickenham 17 years ago, helped on their way by 23 points from fly-half Charlie Hodgson, while captain Jason Robinson became the first player to win Grand Finals in both rugby codes.

The Sharks have featured in just one play-off occasion since that season, though, shipping 40 points against Exeter in 2021.

Standing in Sale’s way at a sold-out AJ Bell Stadium this weekend and a return to English rugby headquarters are the reigning Premiership champions.

When the clubs last met in Greater Manchester Sale ran out 40-5 winners, while Sharks finished second behind Saracens across the regular domestic season.

“Thankfully, this isn’t our first rodeo of recent times with this group,” Sale rugby director Sanderson said.

“We have learnt from two years ago how to manage these kind of moments better.

“It is a game of grand magnitude which we are looking to enjoy and embrace, not to be overwhelmed by. That is the challenge.

“Our excitement exists within this bubble. You don’t want to talk about the further reach because it can become overwhelming, as it did two years ago.

“You have to stick to process while being aware of the buzz around. It has been really, really busy around the ground and there is lots going on this weekend.

“We feel the support more than we ever have done. We have just got to come back to what has been working well for us, which is communicating well and training hard.”

It is difficult to under-estimate the drive that Sale have taken from their play-off loss against Exeter two years ago.

Had they beaten the Chiefs – also in Devon – during the final round of regular-season action a week earlier, then it could have secured a home semi-final.

Sanderson added: “We have been working towards it and building for this for two years, certainly since a year last Christmas when we realised we had a lot of work to do as an organisation.

“Since then, we have looked at how we can give ourselves these kind of opportunities.

“Now we are here, it feels like we have earned it. It’s less of a fairy-tale and there is less emotion around this occurrence than there was two years ago.

“We have referred back to the players, in particular seven or eight of them who have won the big trophies in the past, and how they have managed these weeks, how we can manage these moments better.

“It is a general understanding of how we deal with it, make sure it doesn’t change us, but be aware that it is there.”

Three weeks after being named the 2022-23 Defensive Player of the Year, the Memphis Grizzlies’ Jaren Jackson Jr. is the leading vote-getter to headline the NBA All-Defensive first team.

The league announced the All-Defensive first and second teams on Tuesday, and joining Jackson on the top team is Chicago Bulls guard Alex Caruso, Cleveland Cavaliers forward Evan Mobley and Brook Lopez and Jrue Holiday of the Milwaukee Bucks.

Jackson, who boasted an individual defensive rating of 106.6 – the best among all full-time starters – received the most first-team votes with 96, followed by 94 for Holiday, 85 for Lopez, 50 for Caruso and 49 for Mobley.

The 23-year-old Jackson just completed his fifth professional season, and this is his second time selected to the All-Defensive first team.

Jackson’s former Memphis teammate Dillon Brooks was named to the All-Defensive second team, along with Boston Celtics guard Derrick White, Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green, Toronto Raptors forward O.G. Anunoby and Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat.

Jackson’s inclusion on the All-Defensive first team comes after he was announced the winner of the Hakeem Olajuwon Trophy as the NBA Defensive Player of the Year on April 17.

Blocking an astounding 9.58 per cent of all opponent shot attempts, the 6-foot-11 Jackson averaged an NBA-best 3.0 blocks per game.

Lopez was the runner-up in voting for Defensive Player of the Year after leading the league with 193 blocks, an average of 2.5 per game – the highest mark of his 15-year NBA career.

Sports stars and clubs across the world continue to provide an insight into their lives on social media.

Here, the PA news agency looks at some of the best examples from May 9.

Christian Eriksen felt honoured.

A post shared by Christian Eriksen (@chriseriksen8)

David Ginola also enjoyed the Laureus awards.

A post shared by David Ginola (@davidginolaofficial)

When Peter met Ted.

Burnley celebrated.

Abdoulaye Doucoure made the podium.

Beth Mead brought a smile to Leah Williamson’s face.

Happy birthdays.

Charlie Adam saluted the retiring Glenn Whelan.

Sam Billings revealed he had skin cancer last year.

Somerset turned the clock back.

Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill reflected on her weekend in Paris.

A post shared by Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill (@jessicaennishill)

Simone Biles shared her big day.

Joe Joyce made a vow.

View of the day?

Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog missed the entire 2022-23 season because of a right knee injury.

That same injured knee will cause him to miss all of the 2023-24 season, as well.

Landeskog will undergo cartilage transplant surgery on the knee, the Avalanche announced on Tuesday.

Wednesday’s scheduled surgery will be the fourth on the knee for Landeskog, who initially hurt it when he was sliced by a skate in a 2020 playoff game against the Dallas Stars.

The last time Landeskog took the ice he was hoisting the Stanley Cup over his head on June 26, 2022, after helping Colorado to the franchise’s third title.

He missed the final seven weeks of the 2021-22 regular season after having surgery on the same knee in March, but was able to return for the playoffs.

He was instrumental to Colorado’s Cup run, tallying 11 goals and 11 assists in 20 postseason games.

The 30-year-old then had another surgery in October 2022, and was initially projected to miss 12 weeks.

He was never able to fully recovery, however, and announced during the final week of the 2022-23 regular season he would remain side-lined for the playoffs.

Without Landeskog this past season, Colorado still managed to win the Central Division, but its season ended with a first-round loss to the Seattle Kraken.

Landeskog, who has six seasons left on a $56million, eight-year deal he signed in 2021, was drafted second overall by the Avalanche in 2011, and ranks eighth all-time in franchise history with 571 points.

Leicester are ready to contest Chris Ashton’s red card that could rule him out of Tigers’ Gallagher Premiership play-off clash against Sale.

The 36-year-old former England wing was sent off for a high tackle on Harlequins’ Cadan Murley during Leicester’s 20-17 defeat three days ago.

Ashton, the Premiership’s record try-scorer, will retire at the end of this season, but he could now be banned by disciplinary chiefs.

If Ashton is suspended then his hopes of featuring in the play-off – and possibly the Premiership final on May 27 – will be over.

“When we get the date of the hearing, which I would have thought would be Wednesday, we will contest it,” Leicester boss Richard Wigglesworth said.

“It will be this week and if we get it turned around he will be available (for the play-off).

“The slipping and the dipping, there were mitigating factors in the tackle and the mitigating factors are why we think it is a yellow (card) and not a red.

“I am not calling anything dodgy. I know they have got a difficult job. We just want everything to be clear and obvious.

“If it is a high level of force and danger, then the red card is there to protect players. They have got to get it right, that is their job.

“We have got to get our tactics right, the players have got to get themselves right and they have got to get those decisions right.”

Wigglesworth would have no problem, given the time-frame, regarding Ashton’s readiness to face Sale on Sunday if he received a green light.

“Chris will know his stuff and be good to go,” Wigglesworth added.

“He is experienced and he will still have a training day knowing he is in the starting team, if that happens, so that wouldn’t be a problem for us.”

Premiership champions Leicester face a team that finished one place and 10 points above them across the 20-game regular season.

Saracens meet Northampton in the other play-off, meaning a repeat of last year’s final between Leicester and Saracens is possible.

Gregor Townsend admitted he had resigned himself to the likelihood that his time as Scotland head coach was drawing to an end before the Scottish Rugby Union recently moved to offer him a new deal until April 2026.

The 50-year-old’s previous contract was due to expire after the upcoming World Cup and, with no talks having taken place with the governing body, there was intense speculation during the winter that he would be leaving his post following the autumn showpiece in France.

However, tentative negotiations began in the middle of the recent Six Nations campaign and it was confirmed on Tuesday that Townsend – already Scotland’s longest-serving head coach after taking charge in 2017 – was set to remain at the helm for a further three years.

“I suppose the time when I wasn’t getting offered the contract, there was a lot of thinking going on there and a couple of stages in the season I thought ‘this will be my last season’, so to be able to at least have the discussion and think about the future has been a big positive and I’m obviously delighted to be able to stay with this group in this role for a few more years,” he said.

Townsend was linked with other jobs earlier this year but he insists there was never any likelihood he would commit to anything at that point.

“Not really,” he said, when asked if he was close to pledging his future elsewhere during his period in contract limbo.

“There were a couple of approaches between the Autumn Tests and the Six Nations but I don’t think there was any chance I was going to commit to anything before the Six Nations.

“The positive was that during the Six Nations, discussions started to happen between Scottish Rugby and myself. While I felt I wasn’t going to get a contract offer here, I don’t think I was going to commit to anything with a tournament on the horizon.”

Townsend, who will have been in charge for nine years if he sees out his contract, is thrilled to be remaining in a job he relishes.

“Not being able to make that choice or decision (to stay) was the difficult part,” he said.

“Me and the coaches focused on the rugby side of it because there wasn’t really any decision to make until we got to a stage where there was a contract offer.

“I love the job. You get ups and downs with it but I feel real sense of purpose being in the job.

“I’ve loved this season more than any other, the emotion down at Twickenham, seeing the way the guys came back in Paris, to have experienced a tour like last summer (in South America) with new, young players that breathed life into the team. We obviously want to build on that in the next few months ahead.”

British heavyweight Joe Joyce intends to jump straight back in with Chinese fighter Zhilei Zhang after activating his rematch clause.

Joyce’s hopes of a world title showdown against either Tyson Fury or Oleksandr Usyk suffered a major setback when the Londoner was stopped in the sixth round by Zhang at the Copper Box Arena last month.

It was a first professional defeat after 15 straight wins for Joyce, whose right eye was almost swollen shut, which led to the bout being waved off after he was twice inspected by a ringside doctor.

Despite being outclassed by Zhang first time around, Joyce wants to immediately correct the record.

“Rematch clause activated. Taking back what’s mine,” the 37-year-old wrote on Twitter.

Zhang claimed Joyce’s WBO interim title and with it the mandatory position to face the sanctioning body’s full champion Usyk, who also holds the WBA and IBF belts in boxing’s blue riband division.

However, the WBA and IBF mandatories – Daniel Dubois and Filip Hrgovic respectively – take precedent, which may have left Zhang waiting for his shot for at least a year.

Zhang was rumoured to be in talks for a showdown with Tyson Fury, but a return bout against Joyce, which could take place in China, now looks the likeliest option.

Gregor Townsend is braced for a “difficult” task in whittling his 41-man Rugby World Cup training group down to 33 for the tournament itself, although the Scotland head coach is intent on finalising his pool for France in early August.

There were few major surprises in the 50-year-old’s provisional squad named on Tuesday. Glasgow back Stafford McDowall and Leicester lock Cam Henderson were the only uncapped players included, although both were involved in the Six Nations squad earlier this year.

Jonny Gray was the highest-profile absentee after the Exeter second row suffered a serious knee injury recently, while Fraser Brown, Johnny Matthews and Mark Bennett have been left out.

“It was really difficult,” Townsend said of his selection. “Certain positions required a lot of debate, not just yesterday but the last few weeks.

“I was really keen for a 38-man squad and then I suppose Jonny picking up his injury last week, and a couple of other things, it got to 40 and then it got finalised on 41.

“It just shows the depth we have that we’ve left out some quality players and we’ve still got so much quality in the squad.”

Scotland play four warm-up matches between July 29 and August 26 and Townsend hopes to cull eight players after the game at home to France on August 5.

“It will be difficult,” he said. “It would have been easier if it was 38 because then you only have five players to drop out the squad.

“My goal is to get that down to 33 quickly, maybe after the second warm-up game. That’s what I’m looking at, so we can start working with that 33 in training weeks, get used to them working together, with two games after that.

“If we can get down to 33, that will be really good for our preparations for the World Cup.”

Townsend confirmed he does not expect lock Gray to be fit for the World Cup after the 29-year-old dislocated his kneecap in Exeter’s Champions Cup semi-final defeat by La Rochelle a week past Sunday.

“I think it’s going to be at least four months from now until he’s back in full training and ready to play,” said the head coach. “We kick off in four months’ time against South Africa so who knows?

“It might be that a couple of weeks into the tournament we pick up an injury and he’s back in full training and played pre-season games, but I think that’s unlikely from where we stand today.

“Let’s hope he’s ready to go around September or October, whether that’s for us if we pick up injuries, or his club.”

Edinburgh wing Darcy Graham and Glasgow flanker Rory Darge are both back in the mix after missing the Six Nations through injury, while former Scotland captains Stuart Hogg and Stuart McInally – both of whom recently announced plans to retire from rugby to pursue other interests after the autumn showpiece – remain on course for World Cup swansongs.

Townsend admitted it was always unlikely there would be many newcomers to the World Cup squad given the number of players that have been integrated gradually but deliberately over the past few years.

“The form of players that have been in our recent squads,” said Townsend when asked why there were so few new faces.

“Argentina and Chile (the summer tour) last year was very important for a number of reasons, and one of the reasons was development of players that got opportunities there and have kicked on and are still in our squad.

“The Six Nations was more of a senior squad, we picked the best squad we could put together and didn’t make many changes because we wanted to keep as much cohesion as possible, so it was always going to be difficult for players outside the group to come in when the players were performing so well in games and training.

“There’s lots of depth there so if we do pick up injuries, we know we’ve got quality players just outside the squad.”

Mark McCall says Saracens’ defeat in the Gallagher Premiership final last season has proved a driving force behind their quest for an immediate Twickenham return.

Victory over play-off opponents Northampton on Saturday would land Saracens a ninth appearance in English rugby’s domestic showpiece on May 27.

Their title hopes last year were dashed by Freddie Burns’ dramatic late drop-goal that saw Leicester claim a 15-12 victory.

“I guess it wasn’t so much losing the final, it was how we lost it, which is the thing that is driving us, I think,” Saracens rugby director McCall said.

“It felt like we played within ourselves. It was how we lost, not because we lost.

“Anyone can lose a final – knockout games are hard to win – but when you don’t feel that you have given it a proper go, then you carry that all summer. I guess that has driven this season to a degree.

“We’ve enjoyed a couple of really good weeks’ preparation. The players are in good spirits.

“We don’t take these things (semi-finals) for granted and we are looking forward to it. To get a home semi-final is exactly what you want.

“They (Northampton) are a very good team, an unbelievably dangerous team, full of talented players in their squad. And this is their second semi-final in a row, so they have shown some really good consistency as well.”

Saracens go into the play-offs after topping the regular season table and finishing 16 points above Northampton.

Fly-half Owen Farrell, though, does not believe that Saracens require a trophy to validate their Premiership return three years after relegation following persistent salary cap breaches.

“I think we have performed consistently enough over the past two years since we’ve been back to be enough of a presence in the Premiership,” Farrell said.

“Do we want to win the Premiership? Yes, of course we do. We’ve got some big personalities maybe playing in their last games for the club and we want to make sure we do them proud.

“To come back and do it (win the title) within a year, we talked about it being special, and we didn’t do it.

“We are on another year now and I have not thought about it in that way too much if I am honest. We’ve been consistent enough over the past two years, without winning last year, to validate us being back in the Premiership.

“We want to be at our best, getting the best out of of ourselves, and I am sure Northampton are the same. We want to make sure we are playing some of our best stuff and we want to enjoy it.

“It’s tough to lose any final. We felt like we didn’t put the best out of us out on that day (last year) and that is obviously a credit to Leicester and what they did as well.”

Former Scotland captains Stuart Hogg and Stuart McInally remain on course for World Cup swansongs after the pair were named in Gregor Townsend’s 41-man pre-tournament training squad on Tuesday.

The experienced duo announced recently that they will retire from rugby to pursue other interests after this year’s showpiece in France.

While Exeter full-back Hogg was always expected to be included in the squad, there was some doubt about whether Edinburgh hooker McInally would be included.

In a squad of few major surprises, Glasgow back Stafford McDowall and Leicester lock Cam Henderson are the only uncapped players included, although both were involved in the Six Nations squad earlier this year.

Edinburgh wing Darcy Graham and Glasgow flanker Rory Darge are both back in the mix after missing the Six Nations through injury.

Exeter second row Jonny Gray has not been included after suffering a knee injury recently, while Fraser Brown, Johnny Matthews and Mark Bennett are among the most notable absentees.

The 41-player group will gather for an initial training camp on 29 May to begin preparations for warm-up matches at home to France, Italy and Georgia and away to the French in July and August.

The squad will then be trimmed to 33 ahead of the tournament in which Scotland will be in a group alongside South Africa, Ireland, Tonga and Romania. Their first match is against the Springboks in Marseille on Sunday 10 September.

Wales international back-row forward Dan Lydiate has sealed a return to the Dragons ahead of next season.

Lydiate, who was recently released by Dragons’ United Rugby Championship rivals the Ospreys, will rejoin a region he played for between 2006 and 2013.

The 35-year-old British and Irish Lion has won 69 caps and is part of Wales head coach Warren Gatland’s extended preliminary World Cup training squad.

The Dragons have not specified Lydiate’s length of contract.

“We are delighted that Dan is coming home to a club where it all started and a place that means a huge amount to him,” Dragons head coach Dai Flanagan said.

“Dan has enjoyed a fantastic career, playing at the very highest level, and he comes back to the Dragons producing some of his finest rugby, underlined by his recent call-up by Wales.

“He is a leader, someone who sets the standards, while his vast experience and approach to the game will be of huge benefit to our young squad.”

Lydiate said: “I’ve had a lot of positive conversations with Dai about what is being built here, and he is one of the reasons I wanted to return and sign.

“There is a good crop of young talent at Dragons, and now I am back on board I will hopefully add some experience, play my part and help them on their journey, too. I am looking forward to getting stuck in.”

Sophia Floersch has set her sights on competing in Formula One “in the next three to five years” after recovering from a spinal fracture.

The 22-year-old currently drives for PHM Racing by Charouz in Formula Three, and has also taken part in endurance events such as Le Mans.

Floersch’s F1 aspirations are all the more remarkable given she broke her spine in a horrific crash at the 2018 Macau Grand Prix, aged 17.

The German driver’s incredible return to the sport saw her awarded Laureus World Comeback of the Year in 2020, and earlier this year she joined Alpine’s Race(H)er programme, which aims to increase diversity.

Speaking at the Laureus World Sports Awards in Paris, she said: “I always dreamt of reaching F1 and now Alpine being behind me actually having the same goals and a clear way of how they want to get there with a woman makes it even better.

“It’s obviously not just on the education side a big plus for me, but financially it’s a big help which I need in my position.

“I think at some point there will be a female driver in F1. In the end, when you’re all in the car, you’re all just driving to win and you don’t really care about gender, or at least that’s (the case) for me.”

She continued: “Nothing is easy in life and especially not motorsports. It’s difficult. In this sport there are many different things that need to fall in place – not just for a woman, but for a man.

“I hope to reach it (F1) in the next three to five years but in the end I think I’m trying to look year to year.”

Floersch feels she has improved as a driver, with help around the more technical aspects of her trade, since joining Alpine in February.

“In general, especially tyre management, tyre warm-up procedure and so on… how to work with the team as well, because it’s a complete new team. We have learned a lot together,” she said.

“That’s where they helped me a lot and also tried to advise which directions to go.

“In the end, it’s really positive to be back, because that’s what I’ve wanted for the past two years, and for next year we’ll try to make the move to F2.”

:: Sophia Floersch was speaking at the Laureus World Sports Awards. Find out more at www.laureus.com