By Whaley Shark
November 6 2010

 Yes, well, it’s only the Anglo-Welsh Cup, both sides’ll rest players, the internationals are away, I was up at five this morning, it’s been a long week, can I be bothered to trek into Stockport on a dark, damp Friday evening in November? Well. I did go, and I’m extremely glad I did, because last night was maybe a glimpse of Sale’s future…..

We settled early, with Rob Miller kicking a penalty from half way after just two minutes. The next score came after ten minutes, when Irish had a penalty, put it in touch on their ten metre line, but knocked on. From a solid scrum, we worked our way intot he Irish 22 and as their defence became more stretched, they conceded a penalty, which Dwayne Peel kicked cross-field for Tom Brady to gather, round the last defender and cross on the left, sadly injuring a shoulder in the process and ending his part in the game.

Both sides continued to play attacking rugby, but were unable to sustain possession. We had a penalty which hit the post, Irish cleared to half way and from the lineout, we fed the ball wide,  Paul Williams came into the line, slid through an invisible gap and put Fergus Mulchrone in under the posts for 15-0 after 21 minutes.

The game continued to ebb and flow until, again, Irish discipline let them down and a quick free kick from a Sale scrum in midfield sent Chris Brightwell away. He drew the defence and slipped a simple pass away to give Fergus Mulchrone his second try of the night. Finally, as the clock ran down to half time, another London Irish error gave us an attacking scrum and a scorching loop from Dwayne Peel took us close. We worked the ball back quickly to the left, created a huge overlap and debutant Iain Thornley, on for Tom Brady, scored with ease. That took us to a comfortable 25-0 lead at half time.

Irish must have had a bit of a heart-to-heart at half time, because they started the second half with determination and exerted considerable pressure on our defence, which nevertheless held firm. From one attack, though, Irish were a bit slow moving the ball and Rhys Crane intercepted, running in under the posts from 80 metres. Our last score of the evening came from an attacking lineout. We set up a maul, made ground to the Irish 10 metre line, then a charging Lee Imiolek broke a tackle and slid a nicely timed pass to the supporting Chris Leck. With the conversion, that took us to 39-0 after just over an hour.

We built yet another good attacking position from the restart but, as we spun the ball out in the Irish 22, the winger Marland Yarde intercepted and just had the legs to get home in the right hand corner. As legs tired, we eased off with the game won, and the first contribution substitute Karena Wihongi made was to be sin-binned, Irish pressure told and we conceded another try as their forwards battered over our line from close range to bring the score to a more respectable 39-14. The game ended with Irish on the attack again, but knocking on in our 22.

All round, some excellent performances and clearly quite a few players are knocking on the door of the First XV. I know it was only the LV= cup, the pressure isn’t quite what it would be in the Premiership and Irish weren’t at full strength, but it was still a very convincing game, more so in my view than the massacres of the clearly outclassed El Salvador and Petrarca. I think it was built on a very well organised and disciplined defence, which regularly doubled up on the London Irish players and harried them into making mistakes, but then we had the skill and confidence to exploit those errors. We seem to be developing a pretty useful maul, and our lineout went well, and those helped give us a solid platform as well. My man of the match- Paul Williams, for a fine captain’s performance and some lovely individual moments. Negatives (compulsory for this board, I believe); well, it was disappointing to see quite a small crowd although there was a decent atmosphere. However I’m sure, if we keep playing like that, the word will spread and the numbers will increase. I’m looking forward to Sale v Irish Part 3 at the Reebok already. I may even get Mrs Whaley to come along…..