By Whaley Shark
November 24 2009

Having done many chores, including cleaning the bathroom and cooking a sausage casserole, in order to earn his passout, the Whaley Shark was let out for the afternoon. And how did he spend it? Trekking over to Leeds to watch a game of rugby…..

Well, thanks to some moron, who thinks their Nissan Micra is a Chieftain tank and won’t fit down a suburban street, I get into the ground just in time to see Leeds converting their first try. My abiding impression of the rest of the first half is greyness- a cold grey sky and disjointed grey rugby from us. Although Leeds look far more dangerous than we do, they don’t actually score again and just for a bit we start to look interested in the game. The lady in the Sharks hat next to me says “A score before half time would be good”, but I don’t think she means that we should make a dog’s dinner of a scrum and concede possession to Leeds, who execute a straightforward backs move and send Scott Barrow through to score. 14-3 down at half time, I am sorely tempted to head back to the car, but I resist because the mini-rugby seems quite entertaining.

It’s more of the same at the start of the second half, and we concede a penalty after five minutes. Things are obviously tetchy, because there is a fight on the half way line and Marc Jones and Calum Clark are given ten minutes to contemplate the error of their ways. Leeds are caught offside deep in their half, but Charlie screws the penalty kick horribly wide- this is clearly not going to be our day.

However, Charlie clearly decides enough is enough. He gathers a high kick from Leeds and feeds left wing Vakacegu, who makes ground. The ball is recycled, Charlie makes a break, we get quick ball from the ruck and work it left to Ben Cohen, who crosses on the left. The 17-10 scoreline seems to rattle Leeds. They kick straight into touch to give us a lineout on their 10 metre line. We break down the right, and Wiggy cuts back inside to score under the posts. Two converted tries in six minutes have tied the score.

Charlie continues to keep Leeds at arm’s length with exquisitely weighted touch finders and, from one of these, Leeds mess up and we have the put-in at a scrum a few metres out. It takes several goes to get the scrum right, and then our pack destroys the Leeds scrum, Carl Fearns breaks left and scores with six minutes to go. Charlie converts, we have come back from the dead, and the Sale fans around me are going nuts. The Leeds heads drop, they seem to run out of ideas and apart from one heart-stopping moment when we let a restart kick bounce and Leeds are stopped just a few metres from our line, we see out the last few minutes without alarms.

Well, what to say? I didn’t expect that, but I was mighty glad to see it. Both sides seemed nervy, and there were plenty of mistakes, partly attributable to the biting wind. Some fussy refereeing didn’t help. So, not a classic by any means, but job done! Man of the match- Charlie for his fly half masterclass.