Sale go for youth again as Josh gets captain’s call
JOSH BEAUMONT’S hugely promising career will take another upturn when Sale his week announce the 24-year-old as their new captain for the 2016-17 season.
Sale clearly see the same leadership qualities in Josh that dad Bill possessed in steering England to the Grand Slam in 1980.
He will replace Dan Braid who has worn the armband for the past three seasons but is now a member of the coaching staff at the Sharks.
No. 8 Beaumont was temporarily handed the captain’s armband last February when Braid was sidelined through injury, scoring the only try of the game in a famous 10-3 win over Leicester at Welford Road. Previously he led Durham University to the BUCS title at Twickenham in 2013, his breakthrough year at Sale.
Sale have a track record for appointing young captains with James Gaskell and Alex Sanderson barely out of their teens when they were handed the responsibility.
Gaskell, now at Wasps, still holds the record as the youngest ever Premiership captain having been handed the job by Mike Brewer for the 2010/11 season, aged just 20 years and 106 days.
Neither Gaskell or Sanderson were able to impose themselves as captains though, mainly due to injury, and lasted only one season in the job.
Blackpool-born Beaumont broke into the England Six Nations training squad last season but was forced to miss the final three months of the season after suffering a dislocated shoulder at the end of February. Sale are expected to announce a raft of resignings next week including a new deal for injured England Saxons fullback Mike Haley.