By Harley Quin
February 22 2013

It was never going to be easy against a resurgent Sale side fighting for their Premiership lives, but Harlequins turned in a controlled, dominant performance to emerge with a vital road victory to stay top of the table.

On a freezing cold evening, the home side were on the front foot from the first minute. Full back Cameron Shepherd came into the line on halfway and burst through the defensive line before rounding Ross Chisholm to score after only 75 seconds. Danny Cipriani added a difficult conversion to give the Sharks an early 7-0 advantage.

After a difficult five minutes the visitors began to assert themselves and the first of many penalties conceded by the home side gave Ben Botica the chance to reduce the arrears by three points.

Easter's confidence was evident soon afterwards when he asked Botica to kick for the corner instead of another penalty attempt at goal. Unfortunately, the resulting maul resulted in a home scrum and the danger was cleared. A few minutes later Botica did add another 3 points to reduce the arrears to a single point. 

The first quarter of the game was contested in midfield, with both sides only managing one visit to their opponents' 22. However, the penalty count against the home side was beginning to mount and the referee finally went to his pocket to sin bin Sale centre Sam Tuitupou after 28 minutes.

Quins made the man advantage count when Karl Dickson made a wonderful 'show and go' break from the halfway line, before drawing the last line of defense and sending Tom Williams over by the posts. Botica was never going to miss from there so the visitors ended the half with a six point lead. It could have been nine, but Botica missed another penalty from 42 metres with time expired. Half time: Sale 7 Harlequins 13.

The temperature on the pitch certainly went up in the second half. Quins started brightly and another Sale infringement allowed Botica to put some daylight between the teams with his third successful penalty.

Then, on 55 minutes, there was a major fist fight between Jones and Fa'asavalu. From my seat, the officials totally bottled it and yellow carded only Fa'asavalu.

Quins responded with the best sin bin 'kill' imaginable. Having cleared the danger from the ensuing penalty to the corner, the irrepressible Dickson ran 50 yards to set up an attacking possession and the visitors then spent the next 8 minutes in the Sale 22. Phase after phase Quins killed both the clock and Sharks' resistance before Nick Easter emerged from the bottom of a pile of bodies having touched down to give Quins what proved to be an unassailable lead. 

It got better. Hardly had they got back to full strength when another penalty was put into the corner by Botica. From the line out Quins maul ended with Charlie Matthews crashing over to score. 

With 10 minutes to go the question now became 'could Quins get the bonus point try'? They threw caution to the winds and it all got a bit 'Keystone Cops' at times. In the end it was the home side who scored two consolation scores, but the result was never seriously in doubt. Final score: Sales 21 Harlequins 30.

Karl Dickson really caught the eye tonight with a dynamic, tenacious, intelligent performance and was at the heart of most of Quins attacking moves.

After the game Conor O'Shea was "Incredibly happy. Credit to our guys, to come here and get a win like that. Huge for us. These are games they don't remember in May, but they are bloomin' important and we are chuffed to pieces." Then he was already focused on some unfinished business against Exeter....

Harlequins:
15. Ross Chisholm 14. Tom Williams 13. Matt Hopper 12. Jordan Turner-Hall 11. Ugo Monye 10. Ben Botica 9. Karl Dickson 1. Mark Lambert 2. Joe Gray 3. James Johnston 4. Charlie Matthews 5. George Robson 6. Maurie Fa’asavalu 7. Luke Wallace 8. Nick Easter (C)
Replacements:
16. Rob Buchanan (for 2 55mins) 17. Darryl Marfo (for 1 70 mins) 18. Will Collier 19. Sam Twomey 20. Joe Trayfoot (for 7 75mins) 21. Jordan Burns (for 14 77 mins) 22. Rory Clegg (for Botica 75 mins) 23. George Lowe (for 13 55 mins)

Sale:
15. Cameron Shepherd 14. Charlie Amesbury 13. Jonny Leota 12. Sammy Tuitupou 11.  Mark Cueto 10. Danny Cipriani 9. Will Cliff 1. Ross Harrison 2. Tommy Taylor 3. Henry Thomas 4. Fraser Mckenzie 5. Kearnan Myall 6. Dan Braid 7. David Seymour (C) 8. James Gaskell
Replacements:
16. Marc Jones (for 1 50 mins) 17. Eifion Lewis-Roberts (for 2 50 mins) 18. Tony Buckley (for 3 50 mins) 19. Tom Holmes (for 4 70 mins) 20. Richie Vernon (for 5 61 mins)  21. Cillian Willis (for 9 67 mins) 22. Nick Macleod (for 11 33 mins) 23. Will Addison (for 14 14 mins)

Attendance: 7,103