“Oh bugger! Why did I tell The Major I’d write a report on this game?” That’s what I think as I take my seat in the uncovered Clubhouse Stand at Welford Road ten minutes before kick-off. The rain, promised for the end of the game by the BBC, has arrived nicely in time for the beginning, turning the pitch into a slippery mudheap and my notepad into papier maché, and I know I’m going to be relying entirely on my fairly rubbish memory to write a report on a game seen from one end of the ground through dripping, steamed-up glasses. So here goes……

Well, we fell for a bit of a sucker punch first up. We made a mess of controlling the kick off, put ourselves under pressure and some slick handling gave the Tigers a 3-on-1 overlap on the right, with Johne Murphy touching down under the posts. Although we seemed to recover from that setback, we didn’t have too much penetration and couldn’t really get into their 22 very much. Equally, we had withstood one very fierce goal-line siege so things were pretty even and Luke McAllister and Andy Goode had swapped penalties to take us to half time still in touch at 10-3 down. It had also stopped raining, though not before my trousers had soaked through and I could feel the water running down into my shoes.

The next significant action was so far away I haven’t a clue what happened. There was a heap of bodies in the mud, lots of running around at the far end of the pitch and a little stick man fell over. Then the referee stuck his arm up for a try- that’s all I know about Dan Hipkiss’s score. At 17-3 down, we seemed to feel we had nothing to lose and started to chuck the ball about a bit. We put Tigers under some real pressure for the first time in the half and worked the ball quickly left, where Luke McAllister crossed in the corner.

This seemed to annoy the Tigers, who won a penalty and then had a try disallowed for a forward pass. We kept throwing the ball about and it suddenly went horribly wrong, Andy Goode got his hands to an attempted chip over the defence, grabbed the ball and set off. Then he realised he could save himself a lot of effort, and gave the ball to Tom Varndell, who disappeared up the field, leaving the defence trailing behind. With the conversion, we were 27-8 down and pretty much out of it. At the death, we gave Tom Croft another interception try to finish up 32-8 losers.

Oh, and as I left the ground, I heard the sound of weeping from the groundsman’s shed…..

Positives- we weren’t outplayed in the set pieces, the backs looked pretty good in spells and we can now concentrate on the ECC and the League. Negatives- I don’t think we really believed we could win this, and certainly not after we’d given away a try in the first three minutes. We suffered under the high ball, letting a lot of Andy Goode’s bombs bounce- Tigers took many more of our high kicks cleanly. We also seemed to lose the back row battle and turned over quite a bit of possession. Discovery- just because the Sale replica shirt has a shark gill motif, it doesn’t mean you can breathe underwater.

Right, I’m off to find a cure for trench foot.

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