Wales props Francis and Smith reunite at Sale with one eye on the 2027 World Cup

Tomas Francis and Nicky Smith have arrived at Sale Sharks’ Carrington training ground this summer with matching ambitions: revive their club careers in the Premiership and force their way into Wales’s plans for the 2027 Rugby World Cup.

The two props were reunited by chance. Smith, 32, left Leicester after accepting a three-year contract offer from Sale, while Francis, 34, returned to England from France’s Pro D2 with Provence, drawn partly by the chance to move his family closer to his native Yorkshire. Neither knew the other had signed until the announcements went public.

“I signed and then when it got announced he texted me saying: ‘I’ve signed,’” Smith recalls. “I was like: ‘Shut up, you’re just winding me up.’” Francis adds that he had been told Sale had signed a Welsh international loosehead and was quietly hoping it might be Rhys Carré.

The pair previously shared two seasons together at the Ospreys between 2021 and 2023, and will now form either side of British and Irish Lions hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie — another former Exeter teammate of Francis — in what shapes up as a formidable front row.

“Nicky and Dickie — it’s a bit of a mouthful, we really need to change one of their names — but the chance to play with them again is a pull for me,” says Francis. “In the latter stage of your career, you want to play with your mates and class players, so it’s good.”

Front-row depth was an issue that cost Sale last season when injuries bit, but the arrivals of Francis and Smith supplement an already substantial group that includes England internationals Asher Opoku-Fordjour and Bevan Rodd, plus England A hooker Nathan Jibulu.

“We sat down in the front row meeting the other day and you look round and see the quality there,” says Smith. “We’ve probably got two or three boys in each position that you would be more than happy to see start.”

Beyond the front-row arithmetic, both players view Sale — expected to challenge for Premiership play-off places again after a difficult 2025-26 campaign — as a credible launchpad for a World Cup push. For Francis in particular, he describes the club as his final destination in professional rugby, making the next two seasons all the more focused.

In the meantime, there are more immediate puzzles to solve — chiefly, telling England back-row twins Tom and Ben Curry apart. Francis thought he had cracked it until a recent haircut complicated matters. Smith had a more direct lesson: he sat down next to Ben, mistook him for Tom, and asked how the extra fitness session had gone. “‘Mate, that’s my brother,’” came the reply. “To be fair to him he did laugh,” Smith says.