Steven Kitshoff will indeed pack down for Sale Sharks later this year, but not for record-breaking money.

Reports earlier this week linked the Springbok and Stormers loosehead prop with a move to the ambitious English club on a deal so lucrative that it was said Kitshoff’s current employers would need to raise a counter-offer with an estimated value of R60m over five years to keep him in South Africa.

Sources have since confirmed that Kitshoff has put pen to paper on a Sale contract that kicks in after the 2019 Rugby World Cup, but that it is a three-year deal with a more market-related gross value of R27m (£1.5m).

The 37-Test scrum juggernaut will add real bite to the Sale set piece, joining a squad that includes Faf de Klerk, Jono Ross, Rohan Janse van Rensburg and Josh Strauss, while the club has been linked with long-term offers to the Du Preez twins and their older brother Robert.

— Staff Writer