Last summer, there were two northern flies on the wall of the South African changing room in the build-up to their seismic first Test against Ireland in Pretoria.

Sale Sharks director of rugby Alex Sanderson and Byron McGuigan, the club’s new defence coach, were given an all-access pass into the heart of the Springboks set-up, to see how the best of the best operate. Many of those lessons are now being applied in Sale’s run of three straight Gallagher Premiership victories which culminated in the statement performance of the season, the 38-0 win away at Bristol Bears last Friday.

“Myself and Alex went out to South Africa earlier in the summer and spent a week in their camp leading into the first Test against Ireland,” McGuigan told Telegraph Sport. “We went there with an open mind. We know that we are trying to drive a similar game model to what the Springboks have. You can chat to anybody and pick up things along the way. We were in all their meetings and their training sessions and finished up with a nice meal and a few drinks together, which was brilliant. We learnt and shared as much information as we could with them so hopefully it was beneficial both ways.”

‘Rassie is really good at finding ways to make things personal’

The Sale pair flew back with more technical nuggets than they knew what to do with but the primary takeaway was one of storytelling. For all Rassie Erasmus’s eccentricities and innovations, his real genius lies in how to build a narrative, whether based in fact or otherwise, that his players will buy into unhesitatingly. “One thing we walked away with is that Rassie is really good at motivating people and finding ways to make things personal,” McGuigan said. “That was the biggest thing: how you can make the game personal at so many different levels.”

Rugby, as McGuigan says, is an abnormal sport let alone a profession. You are asking players to repeatedly use their bodies as weapons in defence that will rapidly surpass the physical thresholds of any normal human being. Not only must you not fear pain, you must embrace it. For all the intricacies of tackle technique and correct spacing, McGuigan says that defence is approximately 80 per cent attitude. His job as a defence coach is to find a way to ensure there is the same level of buy-in for Sale’s trip to Gloucester as there was at Ashton Gate when the theme was to ‘cage the Bear’.

“Every game needs its own story,” McGuigan said. “You assess what happened the week before, you assess where you are with your journey as a team and understand what you need from a defensive point of view and the feel of the boys. It is easy to think you have cracked it and nailed it. I told the boys it is impossible to crack it. We have only scraped the surface. We have found a way to make it personal this week.”

Since McGuigan’s promotion to defence coach in mid-November, replacing Jamie Langley, Sale have won four out of six matches. In their past three matches, they have conceded just 17 points, culminating in the ‘nilling’ of a Bristol side who had been averaging six tries a game in the league.

“They’re going into games with greater intent because there’s a greater clarity. There’s an improved collective buy-in,” Sanderson said. “Both things marry up, one drives the other. Aside from myself, Byron is probably the first in having coffees with the boys, not even talking rugby, and then when I left last night he was still sat here with Raffi Quirke going through clips. He pours everything of himself into this position to make us a really good defensive team. The lads see how hard he is working and they go out to work for him.”

Just as impressive as the scoreline against Bristol was the manner in which Sale desperately defended their try line, long after the result was settled, ensuring Bristol came away empty-handed from a dozen trips to the Sharks’ 22. At the final whistle, McGuigan was mobbed by the Sale’s replacements.

It is not long since the 35-year-old was playing alongside many of those same players having retired in 2023. By that stage, he was well on his way to becoming a coach, having cut his teeth with local clubs such as Sandbach, Bowdon and Rossendale. As a player, McGuigan had to scratch and claw for everything he achieved, working his way up from semi-professional rugby in South Africa to winning 10 caps for Scotland, the country of his mother’s birth, and making more than 100 appearances for Sale after previous spells with Glasgow and Exeter.

“I was never the fastest winger so I had to be the fastest thinker in terms of what the defence are trying to do before they do it,” McGuigan said. “I really enjoyed that part of the game and I took that into the amateur game where I was working on my messaging, my methodology and my systems.”

Born in Namibia, raised in South Africa and with Scottish blood, McGuigan still counts himself as an honorary northerner and hopes, in his own small way, to create a similar galvanising effect to Erasmus in the North West.

“I know what he is doing for the people of South Africa and that really inspires me to try to think how can we influence people in and around Manchester,” McGuigan said. “How do we make it bigger than Sale? How do we influence Manchester in a positive way?”