Injury-hit: Jonny Wilkinson playing for Newcastle

SALE
Embarking on their 24th straight season of top flight rugby, Sale don’t get enough credit for being the North’s standard bearers. The Sale highlight this far has clearly been their Premiership title in 2006 when they finished top of the pile in the regular season and then demolished Leicester Tigers 45-20 in the play-off final at Twickenham. That was the era of Robinson, Cueto, Hodgson, Wigglesworth, Chabal, White and Ignacio Fernandez Lobbe and they had served notice the previous year with a third place and decent placin...