Manu Tuilagi poised to end England career with Sale exit amid salary cap concerns

Manu Tuilagi is likely to leave Sale Sharks at the end of the season to move overseas, Telegraph Sport understands, bringing his long England career and time in English rugby to an end.

The England centre, 32, is ready to end his four-year spell at Sale with the club struggling to create enough salary cap room to keep Tuilagi beyond this season.

While Tuilagi’s departure is not yet confirmed, it is understood that a significant change in circumstances with Sale’s cap would be required for Tuilagi to somehow stay, which is viewed as an unlikely prospect.

Sale have in fact already lined up a replacement for next season to take Tuilagi’s place in the squad, with talks underway.

Tuilagi started for England in the Rugby World Cup semi-final against South Africa and the bronze final against Argentina, but is yet to play since then for Steve Borthwick’s side. He missed the first two games of the Six Nations against Italy and Wales while rehabilitating a groin injury before returning to the squad, but was not selected to face either Scotland or Ireland with England opting instead for Ollie Lawrence.

He has scored 20 tries in 59 caps for England, a spell interrupted heavily by injury, since making his debut in a 2011 Rugby World Cup warm-up against Wales at Twickenham.

Tuilagi previously signed a one-year contract extension with Sale last year to remain at the club for the 2023-24 season. Alex Sanderson, Sale’s director of rugby, last discussed Tuilagi’s contract situation back in December, revealing that the retirement of Jono Ross and departure of Coenie Oosthuizen had created enough money last year to re-sign Tuilagi while admitting he was unsure how Sale would make extending Tuilagi’s contract work if they tried to keep him for another year.

Sanderson said at the time: “He came back from the World Cup and I was like, ‘Right, how are you feeling? You reckon you have got another year in you?’ I don’t know how we are going to do it still, but he is like, ‘Let’s get back on the field and go for another steak’, so we will chat over a glass of wine.”

England are moving on from Tuilagi – he is right to cash in

Sometimes, certain players with bad injury records approach a point where you simply have to take the money. No one fits that bracket more than Tuilagi. When you need to devote time to create an injury map explaining where a player has either undergone surgeries or been ruled out for long spells, you feel the need to urge them to take the biggest pay cheque out there.

The fact that Tuilagi is still in England’s squad at all, 13 years after his debut, is something of a minor miracle anyway given his injury record. Could he potentially give more to this England side? Absolutely, even if for now Ollie Lawrence has stolen a march on the inside centre berth, and rightly so given his form playing for Bath this season.

Tuilagi has been to three Rugby World Cups (missing 2015) and played his part in two of England’s greatest tries against New Zealand in 2012 and 2019. Had he been able to stay fit he unquestionably would have been a Test centurion, and perhaps gone on more British and Irish Lions tours than just 2013 to Australia, with a season-ending knee injury in 2017 and his ruptured Achilles recovery in 2021 taking him out of contention. The fact that he went five years between scoring tries for England, between 2014 and 2019, shows just how fractured his career became as a result of multiple setbacks.

When he was fit for England he was magnificent. And for a long time when he wasn’t, England didn’t know what to do without him. It’s only now for the first time that they seem fully prepared to think about life without Tuilagi and, therefore, when better for him to cash in? Clubs in France or Japan will be ready to pay him a small fortune – to hopefully set him up for life – at a time when Sale, as much as they would like to, cannot make the numbers work to keep Tuilagi on the books for another year or more.

This is different to the lamentable departures overseas of Henry Arundell, Joe Marchant and Jack Willis; all young players approaching their prime, talents that English rugby desperately needs in the Premiership not only to be available for the national side but to boost the attraction of the Premiership as well.

Tuilagi still lures people in – for so long he was the most-talked about name in English rugby, a blockbuster attraction – but at 32 he owes us nothing. This could not feel more like the right time for him to be paid as much as possible, given who knows how long he has left. He will go with English rugby’s blessing.