Tom Curry signs two-year extension to remain at Sale Sharks

Tom Curry has signed a two-year contract extension with Sale Sharks, the club reported on 30 September 2026. The 28-year-old England international flanker will stay with the side he has represented since his professional debut.

Curry is in his 11th season in the Sale Sharks first team and has spent his entire career with the club, making his debut aged 18 in October 2016. His identical twin brother Ben also plays for Sale. The extension keeps Curry tied to the Premiership outfit as he continues his long-term association with the club.

Director of rugby Alex Sanderson described Curry as "fundamental" to the team and outlined the terms and thinking behind the deal. "The terms are a couple of years and that's on Tom's desire to ensure that he's physically in the best spot to be able to honour his contract, to play a load of games for the next two years," Sanderson said. "Then we both said we'll see where his body's at, at that point, with the want and desire for him to finish his career at Sale."

Curry said: "Sale Sharks means everything to me and this is the club I have supported my whole life. "I'm very proud of the hard work we've put in over the last 10 years to get the club to where it is now, but I know how much more we have to give and that's the reason I want to stay. There's no place I would rather be." Curry has been capped 71 times by England and has played six times for the British and Irish Lions.

He missed the majority of the 2023-24 season after being diagnosed with femoroacetabular impingement syndrome, a condition that means the ball in the hip joint is not entirely round. Curry underwent hip surgery in February 2024, was warned his career could be over, but returned to playing top-level rugby four months later. In December of that year he had a stem-cell procedure "with a view to him being able to play until the 2027 World Cup in Australia," the article reported.

Sanderson offered an update on Curry's recovery and current condition. "He's surpassing expectations, his own medical expectations and what's gone before him in terms of the [hip] injury that he had," Sanderson added. "We're not seeing any signs of wear and tear at this point and it might come in to factor later down the line but at this point he's as fresh and as mobile as he's ever been."

The article also noted wider England selection and Premiership issues raised by recent moves abroad. Sharks summer signing Courtney Lawes, who made his Premiership debut for the side in the 34-24 home defeat by Bristol at the weekend, has won 105 England caps and returned to England this summer after two years at French side Brive where he was ineligible to represent his country. At present the Rugby Football Union does not permit players not playing in this country to be picked for Steve Borthwick's national side, other than in exceptional circumstances; Toulouse back row Jack Willis, who has retained his award as the best player in France's Top 14, "it's something I still want to do", and Exeter Chiefs director of rugby Rob Baxter said he does not think the rules should be changed. Sanderson warned of potential consequences for the Premiership if the rules were altered: "I just think it would devalue our the Prem, which we know is a really good product with really competitive teams, too much if players were allowed to take the pay cheque, move to France and then get the Eurostar over for training with the international team," he said. "I think it would devastate the Prem because then players can literally have the cake and eat it, can't they? They can take the pay cheque and there'll be no consequence for playing outside of the country. "I understand the views of those lads who feel otherwise and we have some in our quarters. "I'm looking at from a different point of view, from a director of rugby that wants the players and we wouldn't be able to compete to keep them on the books if we had to go against some of the juggernauts of the Top 14."

The two-year extension will keep Curry with Sale Sharks until the end of the 2027-28 campaign, and his December stem-cell procedure was undertaken "with a view to him being able to play until the 2027 World Cup in Australia," as stated in the report.