Manu Tuilagi rejects 'INSULTING' offer from Sale Sharks

Initially, due to the reduced salary cap, Sale's offer was deemed "insulting" by Sanderson, but the club has since made improvements to their planning for the 2023/24 season, resulting in a much better deal being offered.

“We want him, he wants to stay,” began Sanderson.

“We had no money, then we had a bit of money, now we have got twice as much money than we did have. I’m going to Lymm tomorrow to sit down with him to see if it’s enough. I know he wants to stay, so this is just a question of whether his family can survive on it and how much he is willing to sacrifice. I guess I will be buying lunch.”

Asked if there was a specific date for a decision to be taken one way or another, Sanderson added: “Not a deadline so to speak, as soon as possible if we can.

"I would say the next couple of weeks, and he’d want it wrapped up as well.”

The trimmed-down England centre has lost 2kgs after ending his guilty pleasure of binging on food.

Now off the crutches, the centre has continued to slim down as he looks to lessen his chance of injury.

Heading into the summer, Tuilagi tipped the scales at 114kg (17-stone 9lbs), but has lost six kgs [10lbs] and should drop a stone in weight once they are two or three games into the club season.

"I love my food. It is a mentality thing, you probably think you will be alright and you will get through it, until you think about it and you change your mentality. 

"Running around for 80 minutes, those 2kgs can weigh you down quite a bit so we thought, lose a bit of weight and that would allow us to be a bit more mobile, a bit more agile."

Below, we look at five other rugby stars who transformed their bodies to get themselves into top condition.

The Wallabies legend started out as an skinny 78kg teen who worked day in and day out to transform himself, with his size and strength came at a cost, Pocock told Australian Story.

The centre missed out on Eddie Jones’ first squad for the Six Nations Grand Slam triumph in 2016 with the Aussie labelling him “grossly overweight”.

He revealed his incredible body transformation online yesterday saying in the caption…

When he was a prop for the Wallabies Matt Dunning weighed 130kg and was constantly mocked for his tubby frame.

But since retiring from rugby union the 35-year-old has lost a staggering 40kg, dropping from 25 per cent body fat to just 11 per cent in six months.

He looks amazing.

England flanker/hooker Fleetwood was always a fitness freak, but during lockdown she has taken it to another level. She's been documenting her journey, sharing training routines and recipe ideas on her Instagram along the way.