‘Life at Sale Sharks without my brother is weird’ – Luke James

By Jon Newcombe

Sale stalwart Luke James admits his first season apart from older brother Sam has been “very weird”.

Before the Curry twins and three du Preez brothers appeared on the scene, the sibling spotlight fell solely on local lads, Luke and Sam, boyhood supporters of the club who went on to fulfil their dream of playing for the Sharks.

Having lived, trained and played with each other and shared morning commutes for years, the brotherhood was broken up this summer when Sharks double-centurion Sam opted to sign for Racing 92 in France.

Strange Feeling

“It’s been very weird, especially as when I joined the club I lived with Sam first and when we moved out into separate houses we were only a few minutes away, around the corner from each other, so we’d drive in together every day and do stuff after training all the time.

“So to go from that to not seeing him – I don’t think I have seen him since June/July apart from when we played each other, obviously,” Luke said.

Concerned that they may breach rules over information sharing, it was an awkward reunion when Racing 92 travelled over to Salford to play the Sharks in round two of the Champions Cup in the middle of December.

As salt-of-the-earth Mancunians, the James’s integrity has never been in question but past events weighed heavily on their mind when they met in the build-up to the match.

Luke and Sam were both at Sale when Tom Arscott was suspended and then sacked by the club in 2017 for allegedly colluding with his brother Luke, a Bristol player at the time, the night before the two clubs played each other.

Anxious not to be accused of information sharing, the brotherly get-together played out like a scene from Allo, Allo.

Keeping their cards close to their chests

“We were panicking about that,” Luke admitted.

“The week of the game was funny, we were cagey about it, we didn’t really know what we were allowed to say to each other so when we saw each other before the game we tried not to speak about rugby in the slightest and spoke to each other in a sort of like code, almost cryptic.”

On the pitch, the James brothers only made contact at a couple of breakdowns but it was Luke who came out on the winning side, Sale emerging with a 29-7 victory.

It was a nice feeling, not only for the team but for Luke personally, who as Sam’s junior by five years, was used to coming off second-best

“In the last couple of years it has become a bit more physically even.

“But obviously back when we were younger we’d argue and bicker and if he wanted to stop it he’d bring me down or push me to the side and I couldn’t fight back.”

Bulking Up

Luke is now pushing 100kgs, which he credits to time spent in the gym during an injury-plagued 18-month period.

“I am definitely trying to put on a little bit, nothing crazy. I had a couple of seasons when I had a lot of injuries and I kind of had minimal game time so I naturally put a bit of size on then as I was in the gym most of the time for those seasons rather than out of the pitch.”

James’ run of bad luck started the season before last with an ankle ligament injury which required surgery. In the first game of the 2023/24 season, he dislocated his left shoulder and went under the knife again.

A planned comeback was halted when he tore his calf and then, during the Six Nations block, he ruptured his pec in training, only returning for the semi-final defeat against Bath.

Joe Carpenter

During that time, Joe Carpenter took advantage of James’ misfortune to make the full-back jersey his own.

“Before I picked up all my injuries I was playing quite a lot at full-back, but Carps stepped up and did an amazing job,” he said.

“He is fantastic under the high ball and strong in attack, he has a pretty well-rounded game, there aren’t many areas of weakness in him.

“He’s a fantastic fullback, more of a natural full-back than me and because he was playing so well we started to talk about where I could fit into the team again. Byron McGuigan eventually thought 12 was my best position in the team.”

James had played a lot of his youth rugby at inside centre and started his pro career playing there so the switch suits him, especially as the new ‘access laws’ have placed greater demands on full-backs in terms of the increase in aerial competition.

James added: “That was pretty much when I started properly playing 12, just as that law came in, so I gave Carps a quick smile, as if to say, ‘it’s all on you now, I don’t need any of that!’

“It’s nice to be honest, I don’t have to worry about the high balls he has to deal with or anything like that.”

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