{"id":694145,"date":"2026-01-13T23:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T23:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/694145\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T23:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T23:22:10","slug":"raffi-quirke-england-scrum-half-announces-sale-departure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/694145\/","title":{"rendered":"Raffi Quirke: England scrum-half announces Sale departure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">England scrum-half Raffi Quirke has announced he will leave boyhood club Sale Sharks at the end of the season, having been linked with Newcastle Red Bulls.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 24-year-old, who has won two caps and memorably scored a try in England&#8217;s November 2021 win over South Africa, has been hampered by a string of injuries,  with Scotland&#8217;s Gus Warr often preferred at club level.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, Quirke has enjoyed a decent run of form this campaign and was part of England&#8217;s squad for the autumn internationals, retaining his place for a recent January get-together despite Leicester&#8217;s Jack van Poortvliet and Bristol&#8217;s Harry Randall both returning from injury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This has been the hardest decision of my life so far because Sale is the club that I grew up supporting and dreaming of playing for,&#8221; said Quirke.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Playing here since I was 15 has been an amazing experience and a privilege that has shaped me as a player and a person and I will be forever grateful to [director of rugby] Alex [Sanderson], the owners, the coaches, the players and the supporters for truly believing in me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England scrum-half Raffi Quirke has announced he will leave boyhood club Sale Sharks at the end of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-694145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115890365636072099","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}