Some of English rugby union’s biggest names will be front and centre in Salford on Friday evening. Maro Itoje, Jamie George, Ben Earl and Tom Willis all start for Saracens while Tom Curry, George Ford and Luke Cowan-Dickie, among others, will trot out forSaleSharks. Most 20-year-old props, invited to mix in such lofty company, would be feeling seriously intimidated.
It is increasingly obvious, however, that young Asher Opoku-Fordjour is different gravy. As anyone who saw his eye-catching performance against Harlequins last weekend will be aware, his strength and bullocking presence with ball in hand are quite something. “If last week’s anything to go by he’s tracking well, isn’t he?” nods Alex Sanderson, the Sharks’ director of rugby.
In truth, that’s putting it mildly. Opoku-Fordjour is already the youngest English prop in history to win an international cap and his impact in Sale’s 43-29 win underlined exactly why. Could that really be a prop bursting through the midfield like an inside-centre and eluding half a dozen would-be tacklers? And subsequently adding a try for good measure? “It went very well, didn’t it?” says the powerful ‘baby’ Shark, chuckling at the memory. “I had a few special moments which I’m going to remember.”
Which raises the age-old question about young players in the immediate wake of a standout performance. Can they replicate it, particularly in a pivotal fixture like this? The winners will be pretty much odds-on to make the playoffs, the losers rather less so. Unlike some of this season’s more freewheeling Premiership contests, this one has a properly gritty feel to it.
It is quietly revealing, then, to find Opoku-Fordjour seriously up for the battle. “Teams know they have to front up against us because we’ll come out very physical. I feel like they have an extra edge against us. But that makes us more hungry to go after them.” So what will his mindset be at the all-important first scrum against a Sarries pack with serious heft? “In my head I’m thinking ‘I want to dominate this’. In that first scrum you want to give everything you’ve got. But then it’s more a case of ‘How am I going to dominate this? How else can I get around them to get on top of them?’”
A thinking man’s prop, by the sound of it, as well as a dynamic one. His ability to play on both the tighthead and loosehead sides and also be a force around the field has previously been dubbed “as rare as teddy bear shit” by Sanderson. That impressive package places him among a precocious posse of up-and-coming English forwards with real potential: Opoku-Fordjour, Henry Pollock, Afolabi Fasogbon, Junior Kpoku et al. Let’s just sayEngland’s Under-20 World Cuptriumph last year had some exciting foundations.
For the time being, though, Opoku-Fordjour’s toughest opponent is his kitchen cooker as he pursues the 115kg target weight he believes will best suit his top-level ambitions. Having been brought up in the Midlands, his relocation north to Manchester means he can no longer just rely on his mother’s Ghanaian-influenced cooking. “I’m not the best chef, that’s the problem,” he confesses. “But I’ve been working on my skills and I’m getting better. The other day I had sweet potatoes, mince, a few eggs and some broccoli. That was nice.”
Sanderson, though, is alert to the issue – “Sometimes I have to send him home with food” – and sees it as part of the learning curve all young players must negotiate. While giving his player the previous week off paid spectacular dividends against Quins, that is not always possible. As Sanderson puts it: “What I find with young players is that’s it’s not until they have a rest that they grow. The mind is expanded, they come back and they’re better again. I’d love him to score a try and do barnstorming runs past six defenders every week. I’m not sure that’ll happen but he’s got it in him.”
England clearly think likewise, even if they fancy Opoku-Fordjour as a loosehead while Sale prefer him wearing No 3. What is not in question is the all-round ability, that for a brief period in his Wasps academy days, he was at risk of squandering. “When I was in my first year at college I was in the Wasps ACE programme. One of my coaches gave me a kick up the arse. He said: ‘You’re talented but you’re not working hard enough. If you want to get a contract you’ve got to step it up.’ I feel like that’s what I needed.”
Now here he is as a fully fledged England international, having made his debut off the benchagainst Japan last autumn. There have inevitably been blips, not least in a heavy defeat by Northampton last October, but they have been educational. “I’ve had a few games when I’ve probably got a bit frustrated. That Northampton game was pretty tough and I lost my head a little bit. The mental side is massive. If you’re distracted by something that happened two phases ago it can take you away from the next job at hand.”
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As the youngest of four brothers, Opoku-Fordjour is at least well used to standing up for himself. His oldest sibling is an artist – “I don’t have an artistic side, I think that got lost somewhere” – while another plays for Coventry in the Championship and there was plenty of play-fighting back in the day. “They threw me about a bit and I don’t think I ever won. I’d like to see how it would go down now, though.”
Of more immediate concern, however, is subduing Itoje, George, Earl, Willis and co. Sanderson, who spent many years at Saracens, knows precisely what is coming. “I’ve been in that establishment. They – and we – understand that it’s not just the team who finds form that wins cups but the one that keeps improving at the back end of the season. When people talk about anything beyond Friday night I get unbelievably anxious because I know how dangerous they are.”
Sale’s forwards, though, have recently been flexing their muscles and Opoku-Fordjour, for one, will not be taking a backward step. “We’re definitely peaking at the right moment. We also appreciate our fans turning up every week because it helps so much and gives us the energy we need. The Premiership’s very tight ... it’s about which team can be consistently good. We just need to keep trying to be that team. Then, hopefully, we’ll get where we need to be.”