By Whaley Shark
March 26 2011

At the end of a week when spring seems to have come to the north west and, on a fine evening, we face a critical match against our Yorkshire neighbours, are we going to see a polished display of running rugby, or something altogether much more grim and Northern?

Well, I suppose it was always going to be the latter. While we had a number of injured players back, as well as our Six Nations players, and Steve Diamond had talked about a 15 minute blitz, that wasn’t how it appeared to me. We, perhaps unsurprisingly, seemed nervous, low on confidence and coherence and, although we got off the mark early through a Charlie penalty, Leeds hit back a few minutes later. A Leeds crosskick bobbled into touch in our 22, our shaky lineout misfired and Leeds whipped the ball across the field to create a massive overlap and put Henry Fa'afili over in the right corner.  With the conversion, Leeds had a 7-3 lead and their heads were up.

We were just denied a try by Ben Cohen’s foot in touch, following a battering run from Andy Tuilagi, but then the game degenerated into midfield trench warfare. Leeds had a lot of possession but made little progress, although one penalty attempt came off the post. Charlie slotted a penalty on 24 minutes, Eifion came on for Lee Imiolek, which seemed to stabilise our scrum, and Leeds hit the same post with another penalty but, overall, the game remained fairly shapeless. As half time drew close, we built some good pressure from a scrum and won an easy penalty which Charlie kicked from ten metres out. The last action of the half was a very long range penalty attempt from Leeds which fell short, taken with no time left on the clock from inside their own half, out on the right.

In the second half, apart from a few minutes of Leeds pressure arising from a messy lineout, we had the upper hand and built a series of good attacking positions, scoring two penalties and almost getting Mark Cueto over. With an eight point lead, we were perhaps going to sneak this one.... Eventually, after bottling Leeds up for about 15 minutes, we were pinged for not straight at a lineout, then penalised at the resulting scrum, and suddenly Leeds had a lineout on our 22. They hammered away, putting a penalty into the corner, crossing but being held up and setting up a couple of attacking scrums. While our defence looked pretty desperate at times, we held on and all Leeds’ efforts came to nothing as they finally knocked on.

As the game entered its last ten minutes, we were unable to close the game out and Leeds had a couple of final goes at us. Winning a penalty on their own ten metre line, Leeds kept possession for phase after phase and ground their way up to our 22 before some quick interpassing allowed Michael Stephenson to score on the left. Fortunately the conversion was wide and, with two minutes left and only three points in it, we kept Leeds at arm’s length until, eventually, they knocked on to end the game.

I can’t say I really enjoyed the game. The crowd was tense and subdued, and I think the players were too. While we aren’t yet safe, that was a giant stride towards Premiership rugby next season and perhaps we’ll be a little more relaxed in the next few games. Also, with the return of several stalwarts from injury and international duty, maybe the squad will be more settled and less stretched over the last couple of months of the season? On the other hand, the Diamond revolution is gathering pace and players who know they are moving on might find their hearts and minds elsewhere. Still, it wouldn’t be Sale if it wasn’t a drama.....

Man of the match- no real problem with the official selection of Wame Lewaravu.