Sale boss says new financial rules will benefit English rugby

Alex Sanderson is convinced the Gallagher Premiership's controversial cost-cutting measures will benefit English rugby in the long run as he bids to take his Sale Sharks side into the Champions Cup quarter-finals.

The Premiership's salary cap has gone from £6.4m to £5m and the number of marquee players whose salaries sit outside the cap will be cut from two to one for next season.

With less money now on offer in England, the game's top players are being lured overseas and to the higher salaries on offer in France and Japan.

Sanderson has seen that at first hand after losing his World Cup-winning scrum-half Faf de Klerk to the Far East, but he still believes the Premiership's change in approach is for the better even if the number of superstars in the league decreases.

'I think it will definitely help the English game,' Sanderson told Sportsmail. 'You lose experience, talent and a bit of X Factor, but you gain opportunity for good, young English players. It opens up the pathway and lines that could have been blocked before.

'The aim is to make the game a viable, self-supporting business as opposed to a folly of rich philanthropists which is what it has been.

'I think the long-term benefits of saving the game and giving opportunities to young English players definitely outweighs the short-term benefits of having some Galacticos on the field.'

Sale face Bristol in the second leg of their last 16 Champions Cup tie at Ashton Gate on Friday night.

The Sharks trail by a point on aggregate after a dour 10-9 home defeat in the first leg. Bristol have never made the last eight in Europe's premier competition and have again kept southern hemisphere stars Steven Luatua, Semi Radrada and Charles Piutau on the bench.

Leicester's Guy