By Whaley Shark
January 15 2011

Dead rubber, not going anywhere in the Amlin Cup thanks to a slip-up against Brive, big name players rested, opponents Petrarca, whom we beat 56-9 when we visited them back in October, hardly worth getting off my backside and leaving the house on a January Friday evening...

Or perhaps not! We put out a decent, if not full strength side, blooding a young front row, started with a Cliff/Miller half back pair, gave Jonny Kennedy his first start of the year, and ran out very comfortable winners, scoring eight tries along the way.  Although the score suggests a very one-sided game, that wasn’t the case at the beginning, both sides having spells of pressure without scoring. However, the deadlock was broken after 12 minutes, with Brightwell going over after our forwards rolled a maul from 20 metres out. Petrarca responded strongly, thanks to a Sale knock-on which gave them a scrum on the Sale 10. Running through phases, they made ground and set up an attacking scrum from which they forced their way over, but the ball was judged to be held up. They then lost possession and we ran from our own 22, initially to our 10, sent quick ball right and, with some delightful interpassing and neat handling, cut the Italian defence to pieces to put Neil McMillan, galloping along on the shoulder like a good 7 should, over on the right.

As we gained confidence and Petrarca’s heads perhaps dropped a bit, Rob Miller effectively killed the game off with a fine solo try, showing good acceleration and a lovely sidestep to cross near the posts.  The next ten minutes saw almost constant Sale pressure, a couple of attempted backs moves and, finally, a strong run from Mark Cueto set us up on the Petrarca 10, we ran the ball left and Nick Macleod crossed. Another flurry from Petrarca, perhaps an attempt to get on the scoreboard before half time, but lacking real penetration, brought the first half to a close.

Early in the second half, we showed some real adventure, first running from our own 22 to put Henry Thomas in on the left, then starting from deep in our own half again, breaking out with Miller chipping delicately over the defence and gathering his own kick to set up an attacking position. A Petrarca clearance under pressure went to Nick Macleod, who ran it back, with Will Cliff eventually nipping over under the posts.  Our next attack saw Matt Tait cross on the right, after some slick handling, including a pirouette from Nick Macleod which would have been more at home in the Royal Ballet. His pass to Tait, while travelling backwards at speed, was definitely not from the ballet repertoire though. Things got very slow in the last quarter, with the Petrarca hooker sent off for two yellows, and lots of messing around with scrums. However, at the very end, moving the ball well, we worked an opening to put Jonny Kennedy through under the posts for his first Sharks try.

While it’s difficult to tell how that Sale side would fare against Premiership opposition, you can, indeed, only play what’s in front of you, and Petrarca were solid in the forwards, if not particularly mobile, so gave our pack a good test. However, they couldn’t respond when we upped the tempo, hence eight tries to none. Much of the time we played with one, if not two gears in reserve but, when the opportunity arose, we accelerated and attempted to play with style and pace, running strongly and showing real flair. Yes, there were errors but several of the younger players gave a glimpse of future promise. Cliff and Miller were a fine pairing, Kennedy was solid in defence, as usual, but seemed to show more invention and pace in attack, and the front row went well against what looked like significantly heavier opponents. All in all, an enjoyable evening out.

Finally, no problem with Rob Miller as official Man of the Match, but my choice would be Sean Cox, for a dynamic all-round performance whose visibility was aided greatly by a white scrum cap.