Black battles back from injury scare to tackle Sale

Scrum half Black, listed on the subs’ bench, went down heavily in training this week prompting colleague Lee Jones to use social networking to record the incident, saying: “respect to A Black ... back training today after a suspected leg-break.”

Besides internationalists Simon Webster, Ben Cairns, Kyle Traynor and Esteban Lozada new coach Michael Bradley’s first line-up includes two exciting talents from the Premiership in stand off Gregor Hunter and Matthew Scott, who is being tried at centre.

Bradley says: “Matt has a lot of natural talent and has trained extremely well; Gregor had 40 minutes of club rugby last weekend coming back from long term injury and while this will be a step up physically it will be important game time.”

Tonight’s match will see former Sale players Chris Leck and Sean Cox determined to impress with their new team “The opportunity came about in February/March time before Michael (Bradley) was in place.

“Various things happened at Sale and Edinburgh which stalled the deal a little bit. Then Michael had the chance to look at my video and approached me,” said Cox.

“That was when we sat down. Coming from a Premiership club with a private owner is a little bit different from having to go through the SRU first and that put a bit of a delay on things but we got there in the end and I couldn’t be happier.

“I see it as a big challenge playing in a very exciting league which doesn’t get as attritional as the (English) Premiership.”

n BOROUGHMUIR will give a debut in the back row tomorrow to Alex Henderson when they continue their pre-season programme with a home game against Hamilton at Meggetland (kick-off 1pm).

On Sunday, the Meggetland club host an open day for current and potential youth players (all ages).