The England World Cup star, who only moved to Edgeley Park in the summer from Newcastle, injured his hamstring in training earlier this week.
Though the club are awaiting the results of a scan, it is feared the 22-year-old could have pulled his hamstring and may face between four and six weeks on the sidelines and would almost certainly be ruled out of England's four internationals next month.
New England supremo Martin Johnson has already had to change his squad, with Danny Cipriani, Michael Lipman and Nick Abendanon all being called up yesterday following injuries to Jonny Wilkinson, Lewis Moody and Tom Varndell.
Tait's bombshell is the latest in a series of hammer injury blows for Sale's director of rugby Philippe Saint-Andre, with Lee Thomas, Sebastien Bruno, Sean Cox and Oriel Ripol already on the long-term casualty list.
And if the Tait setback wasn't enough, Saint-Andre also revealed that hooker Neil Briggs and England lock Chris Jones both face short spells on the sidelines after being forced off through injury in Sunday's bruising Heineken Cup defeat at the hands of holders Munster.
"Mathew just did it in training on Monday morning and I think it could be that he's out for five or six weeks," revealed Saint-Andre.
"Briggsy twisted his knee and will be out for three weeks while Chris injured his neck and he will be out for a fortnight.
"It's disappointing but when you have big games coming one after the other in both the Heineken Cup and the Guinness Premiership, you expect to have injuries.
"We now have two EDF Energy Cup games, starting with Friday's game against Bath at Edgeley Park, where we will look to rotate the squad.
"Then we have one week off at the start of the autumn internationals and, hopefully, that will allow us to regroup and then focus on our next Guinness Premiership game against Worcester."
Meanwhile, the man they call the Fridge down at Sale's Carrington training base is celebrating after earning his first international call-up.
Prop Eifion Roberts, has been named along with Sharks' scrum-half Dwayne Peel in a 32-man squad for Wales' four Test autumn international programme against South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
It's a fitting reward for the powerful 27-year old, whose family run a livestock farm in Wales, and who shed two stone in the summer in a bid to improve his all-round mobility on the field.
"I received a text yesterday morning and must say I was shocked and surprised," revealed Roberts.
"I am looking forward to joining up with the squad for training and am looking forward to the experience of working with the national coaches."
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