So long Charlie, and thanks for everything.....

By Whaley Shark
August 16 2011

 Time for another fond farewell to a Sale stalwart, moving on this summer, and this time it’s the obvious one, Charlie Hodgson. 

Charlie joined Sale in the summer of 2000, at the age of 19, and made his debut that October as a replacement in a 26-23 defeat by confrontational Auch in France. Having gone 26-9 down (sound familiar?), Sale fought back and had a chance to draw, but Charlie’s long range penalty at the end fell short. He went on that season to make several starts, and to get a fair bit of game time off the bench. The following season saw him firmly established as Sale’s first choice No. 10, playing a key role in Sale’s first ever silverware, the Parker Pen Shield win over Pontypridd, as well as winning his first England cap. His 44 point international debut against a badly outgunned Romania side remains an England record.

He suffered with injuries over the next two years, requiring a knee reconstruction in 2003, which included a spell of rehab in the USA, in the company of Austin Healey. Indeed, surviving weeks on end isolated with Oz may actually be one of the most impressive achievements of Charlie’s career. These injuries cost him his chance to be part of the 2003 World Cup win, and also kept him out of the 2004 6 Nations, but he came back into contention for both Sale and England in 2004-5, pulling the strings as Sale demolished Pau to win the European Challenge Cup.

Among five Sale players to tour with the Clive Woodward’s cast of thousands in the 2005 Lions, Charlie found himself out of contention for the test side, but put in some mesmerising performances in the ‘dirt trackers’ and was one of relatively few to emerge from an unsuccessful tour with much credit.

In the Premiership winning season which followed, Charlie was the lynchpin of a side which won more games and scored more tries than any other, putting the icing on his personal cake with a man-of-the-match performance against Leicester Tigers at Twickenham. He was, however, one of the casualties the following year, when a succession of injuries ripped the heart out of Sale. In his case, it was another knee reconstruction, which cost him the rest of the season and any chance of the 2007 World Cup, and put him out of international contention until 2008. After recovery, Charlie played a full part in the three rather nondescript Sale seasons which followed, then clearly struggled with Mike Brewer’s new broom and, in January this year, announced his planned departure for Saracens. Ironically, he followed up a few weeks later with a sublime personal performance as Sale put in one of their most convincing displays of the season to beat Saracens at Edgeley Park.

While Charlie has been back in the international contention since recovering from his last serious injury, I get the feeling that he doesn’t really fit with the current England management’s plans, and you can perhaps see that in the preparations for this World Cup. A bit part here, a bit part there, so far, but always a sense that he’s a long shot. So maybe he’ll miss out for the third time, which would be a great shame for a consummate professional and a man who, in my eyes at least, has on occasion really played ‘rugby to set your heart racing’? However it all turns out, good luck to you, Charlie, both in your World Cup hopes, and in your future at Saracens. It doesn’t matter what colour shirt you wear though, you’ll always be a Sale man to me.