By Whaley Shark
December 14 2013

The thing about a 54-14 scoreline in rugby’s European competitions is that it may just reflect a horrible mismatch between a professional side and a bunch of Italian students, but last night was actually a very good performance against decent opposition......

Having watched the away game on the laptop, via iBozz-vision, I had the feeling we could be in for a bit of a game, and it looked that way for the first 20 minutes, which were pretty scrappy. We ended that first quarter 6-0 up, thanks to two on-target Danny Cipriani penalties against one attempt from Oyonnax which went wide.

The deadlock was broken, though, after a high kick was well followed up, and Rob Miller and Mark Cueto combined to take us into the Oyonnax 22. Danny Cipriani took it quickly and James Gaskell had the strength to cross on the left. The next few minutes were dominated by the French who exerted some pressure in our 22 but kept knocking on. That let us clear to half way, and a loose pass was nicked by Danny Cipriani who outpaced the cover down the right.

Another Oyonnax knock on at the restart cost them dearly.  We won a scrum penalty, put it into touch ten metres out and the forwards rolled over for a Dan Braid try. The half finished with a fine Mark Cueto try sparked by another tap penalty, this time in our half. Cuets had a lot to do but showed decent pace and a lot of experience to beat two defenders down the left- one for the coaching videos, I feel. So that took us to half time- a four try bonus in 18 minutes and, with Danny converting all four, a scoreline of 34-0.

The second half opened with a few minutes of evenly matched play until, from our scrum on the Oyonnaz ten metre line, Danny Cipriani ran left, looped round the inside centre, took the return pass, chipped over the last defender and ran in for a breathtaking try, definitely another for the coaching videos. Each individual element may be standard stuff but to execute them all together, at pace, is real class.

This isn’t to say that Oyonnax were just making up the numbers. They had threatened at times but an inability to hold the ball and an aptitude for conceding penalties blunted their attacking edge. However, they got it together just after 50 minutes, with fly half Roimata Hansell Pune breaking through our defence to send their winger Dug Codjo over. There was then a twenty minute arm-wrestle, with neither side able to build sustained pressure, until Oyonnax scored again, sending Pune over after a 5 metre scrum.

We weren’t finished though. A neat little grubber kick from Danny Cipriani cornered an Oyonnax defender in his 22 and Rob Miller bundled him into touch. We ran the ball left then right and created enough space for Rob Miller to evade two defenders and score. Sadly, the conversion went wide- Danny’s first miss of the evening. The final score came in the closing seconds, as Oyonnax lost possession in our 22 and Tom Brady ran seventy metres to put the supporting Michael Paterson over. Final score Sale Sharks 53 Oyonnax 14.

What’s interesting about this, reading my notes back, is just how even the game was for long periods. On reflection, I think I may have been unkind to Oyonnax when we were chatting last night. I think they were more competitive than I acknowledged. OK, they’re not the Toulon 1^st XV, but I think they were decent opposition and we just blew them away. Keep up the good work next week lads, please!

A lot of the praise quite rightly goes to Danny Cipriani, who ran the show, brilliantly at times, but he was given the opportunity to do so by a very competitive forward display. All in all, an excellent performance, preceded by my easiest journey of the season to the stadium. The only negative is that so few turned out to watch but, if we keep playing like that, people will come.