By Whaley Shark
May 29 2006

And finally, the last hurdle- Sale face Leicester in the GP Grand Final. One game to decide if the whole season is a success or a failure, a 50,000-plus crowd at Twickenham and we’re just a small club in Cheshire. No pressure then, boys... The Whaley Shark pays his first visit to Twickenham.

“I’ll phone you when we get our seventh try” said the Leicester fan to his mate, with a sly look in our direction. “Up yours” I thought, as I put some money in the Matt Hampson Collection bucket. Anyway, enough of such unkind remarks and on to the game, played in steady rain throughout (rubbish forecast BBC, thanks a lot!)- Sale are going through their established warm-up routine and, even from a hundred yards away, it is obvious that Nick Johnson is keeping minds firmly on the job. Sharky gets the crowd going and is eventually escorted from the pitch by a steward, keeping his bad boy mascot reputation intact. At last, the kick off. Sale clearly mean business and pressurise Leicester straight away into knocking on. From the scrum, we run the ball, then win a penalty 35 metres out. Charlie kicks it for 3-0 inside 5 minutes.

Tigers are penalised at the restart. Charlie kicks for touch, then starts to run through his repertoire- a Garryowen, a chip through and finally a cross kick aimed at Mark Cueto. Geordan Murphy makes a dog’s dinner of it, Cuets gets a lucky bounce and touches down in the right corner. The conversion is wide but we are 8-0 up after 11 minutes. Leicester come back though. Charlie is slow with a clearance kick, which is charged down and Lewis Moody touches down. Andy Goode converts and it’s 8-7 and game on. Leicester begin to stutter badly- they miss touch with a penalty kick, then fumble Charlie’s return into touch. A few minutes later they miss a long range penalty and finally kick straight to touch giving Sale a line-out 30 metres out. Wiggy breaks, chips through and Magnus Lund, following up, scores on the left. The conversion is wide and we are 13-7 ahead after 22 minutes. Leicester continue to struggle, knocking on and kicking straight to touch, allowing Sale to keep the pressure on. Almost all the play is in the Leicester half. Finally, Leicester string several phases together and push Sale back, but excellent defence prevents them from gaining much ground. Then Tigers are penalised and the danger eases. After an exchange of penalties, Sale win a free kick. Seabass and Jason White drive forward, Charlie makes a classic break and feeds Oriol Ripol for a try on the stroke of half time. With the conversion it’s 23-10 to Sale and I wish I had that Leicester fan’s phone number.

Leicester are much more fired up at the beginning of the second half and push to within five metres of the Sale line. Just like Wasps two weeks ago, the Sale defence is fearsome and Leicester moves end up behind the gain line. Leicester win a penalty and go for the corner, but don’t make much from the line-out and, when they get another penalty, take the three points. The fire seems to have gone from them now, and they concede two more penalties for 29-13. Leicester’s play continues to be hesitant- passing behind the man, passing into touch, giving away another kickable penalty, and allowing the Sale back three enough time to deal easily with almost all their tactical kicking. Jason returns one loose kick and catches the defender in possession. Mark Cueto breaks and feeds Chris Mayor, on for Mark Taylor, who is held just two metres out. Sale have an advantage but Charlie drops the goal anyway. 35-13 with 71 minutes gone.

It looks like the Tigers’ last gasp now- they roll a maul, then let their backs loose, win a penalty and run it. Finally they work the ball over the line at the bottom of a heap of bodies and with the conversion, we are at 35-20. But Leicester are still making mistakes- a Varndell grubber kick goes into touch, they concede another kickable penalty and finally, after with Leicester pushing hard, Sale win the ball and Chris Mayor outruns their defence over 70 metres to score under the posts. Valentin Courrent, replacing Elvis for the last few minutes, converts. Game over, 45-20, and WE ARE CHAMPIONS!!!!!

To me, it looked like Leicester didn’t really turn up. Sale most certainly did, and gave Tigers, so long ruthless in identifying and exploiting opponents’ weaknesses, a substantial dose of their own medicine. Charlie’s tactical kicking was sublime, finding space and giving the Leicester back three a very uncomfortable afternoon. The Sale defence was colossal, the tight five forwards took not one step back and eventually broke the vaunted Tigers pack, and the loose forwards really got at the Tigers’ half backs. By contrast, Wiggy played as well as I’ve seen him, mixing things up well, and Charlie ran the game fluently. We even managed to bring the Edgeley Park bear-pit atmosphere from the semi-final south with us, roaring Sale on throughout the game and drowning out the occasional, timid “Tigers, Tigers”.

Personally, I wasn’t sure about the play-offs, but this was a hell of a way to end things! Instead of winding up three weeks ago with a dead game at Northampton, we have seen off two of the best teams in the Premiership with two of our best performances of the season, and finished victorious in front of a 50,000 crowd. And as for that Tigers fan, I hope his remark was meant in jest and, if not, I imagine he now knows the taste of humble pie. All the Tigers supporters I met afterwards were very gracious in defeat, and I’m already looking forward to Welford Road at the beginning of September. Finally, a great big thank you to all the players, the backroom staff and Mr Kennedy and his wallet!