On a warm night and with highly vocal support Bristol took on Star-studded Sale.  The game started, and was played throughout, at high pace.  Bristol had the first scoring opportunity after Sale gave away a penalty at a ruck, but Adrian Jarvis was off-target with his effort.  Sale were shortly offered a penalty chance of their own towards the end of the first quarter when surprise centre Ed Barnes was harshly sinbinned and England reject Hodgson made no mistake to give Sale a 0 - 3 lead.

David Lemi made a neat break down the wing and appeared to be obstructed.  The referee may have allowed a very short advantage, but the lack of official sanction provoked the ire of the Bristol support, and not for the last time.  Graeme Beveridge, who enjoyed a good match, made a typically darting break and well judged chip ahead only to be obstructed in his turn and the miscreant, as before, unpunished.  Alfie To'oala, who seems to have lost some weight and gained some pace, then made one of his characteristic crashing charges.  He made good initial ground and continued to make progress toward the line despite the attentions of several Sale defenders.  Eventually brought to ground the Bristol support was there in numbers only for Peel to come round the side and prevent quick release of the ball.  Definitely a penalty and probably a yellow card.  In any event  the excellent, and newly shorn, Neil Brew took a quick tap penalty, sped to his right, caught the defence flat-footed and dived over for a try.  Unfortunately the referee felt otherwise.  He was probably the only person in the entire ground who thought so.  Presumably it was because he thought the penalty was taken from the wrong place or perhaps he had his back to it.  Who know?  Frankly he was wrong and he may well have cost us a tight game.  Before the match my wife commented that he was much improved from when we first encountered him in ND1, I reluctantly agreed at the time.  By this time in the match I was back to my original ND1 position, as Bristol might be if the don't win games like this.  Jarvis, however, made no error with the penalty kick to equalise the score at 3-all.

Not to be out-done by his backrow colleague, Joe El-Abd then made a powerful run that similarly took several defenders to halt.  He was able to offload out of the tackle to Lemi who was, sadly, well covered by the wary Sale defence.  So the incident free, un-entertaining half drew to its sad and weary close with score at an old-fashioned 3 - 3!

The second half continued to see Bristol heavily and sometimes inexplicably penalised, especially at the often wheeling scrum.  Personally it looked to me that Sherridan, as so often, was struggling against a much shorter opponent.  Instead it was Jason Hobson who drew the referee's attention and the Bristol backrow for failing to bind at a scrum that was well past 90°.  These penalties first allowed McAlister to kick a fine long-range effort from inside his own half to ease the visitors into a 3 - 6 lead.  This was swiftly followed by another good shot to take Sale further ahead to 3 - 6.

Bristol were still hunting for a way through the smothering defence and continued to plug away Sale.  Too often the tactic seemed to be an aimless hoof into the air, but eventually a kick made touch and astonishingly the Sale throw was deemed to be not straight.  The scrum went Bristol's way and the moved the ball along the line seeking to create an overlap.  The move was halted by the defence but the referee flung out his arm to indicate a penalty, perhaps forgetting for a moment that we were playing in different directions!  Bristol chose to kick for goal and Barnes justified the decision with a fine kick take Bristol to 6 - 9.  Sale attempted to impose themselves on Bristol but fierce defence knocked them back and forced a turnover that handed the initiative back to Bristol.

Eventually the pressure told with the award of another penalty which Bristol again elected to kick for goal rather than take the bolder option of kicking for the corner.  The wrong choice I thought at the time, on the very limit of Barnes' accurate range.  The crowd fell reverently, anxiously, silent.  The ball was struck and sailed wide accompanied by a collective groan of disappointment.  Sale had escaped and mounted some last minute pressure of their own, in particular when Chabal, permitted to take a quick penalty from a location approximately in the region of where it was given, made a powerful burst, and crawl, towards the Bristol line.  The defence held and Sale coughed up the ball with the clock on zero and still Bristol strove to find a way through the defence as they ran out from behind their own line.  A stunning post last-second try was denied them as Sale flung themselves into the tackle and Bristol went down to another defeat.

 So near and yet so far.  But a far better performance than against ‘Quins.  Committed, aggressive, organised.  Individuals stood up to be counted.  The scrum was solid, the lineout reliable.  Rucking and ruck defence was way better than the shambles of the previous week.  We saw Dan Ward-Smith closer to his pre-injury form (despite the defence being markedly closer than 5 metres from the scrum on several occasions) and Alfie To'oala looked back to his dangerous best.  Neil Brew, too, appeared sharp and perhaps our most potent attacking option aside from the mercurial David Lemi.  The downside is that aside from these two backs we did give the impression of lacking a real cutting edge out wide.  All too often the ball was kicked away, although, in fairness this also seemed to be Sale's main attacking option.  Was our positioning when supporting a runner from deep in error? Perhaps this did leave little option than to kick rather than be caught in possession.  In any event, Bristol played with an intensity that I haven't seen this season.  I hope that it wasn't desperation because I believe that we can move on from this and heap some more misery on Newcastle.

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