By Whaley Shark
December 19 2011

 I’m a bit slow off the mark today, thanks to the day job, but here are a few thoughts on yesterday’s match. I felt it was a good performance- we looked like a team, played at pace and with creativity, and withstood a second half comeback from the French. 

A few weeks ago,  Dimes talked about how difficult it was proving to integrate the World Cup returnees into the ‘Sale way’ of doing things, and how that had derailed the strong start we’d made. Well, an away win at Bath, and two bonus point wins in two weeks against Agen suggest that he’s getting to grips with calculus.

It was certainly a pleasant surprise to see a dominant Sale pack and our first try came from that forward power, destroying an Agen scrum on their put-in, pressurising a defensive scrum 5 metres out and, when an Agen forward was binned and we had a penalty, choosing the scrum to let Cillian Willis dart round the blind side and put Tom Brady over in the right corner. Forward dominance was a continuing theme as we nicked an Agen lineout in our own half, Willis wrong-footed the defence and a lovely one-handed offload from Johnny Leota to Henry Thomas let Dave Seymour sneak over in the corner. James Gaskell’s single-handed destruction of an Agen maul set up some really slick link play between Andrew Higgins and Johnny Leota which gave Tom Brady his second try of the afternoon. Quick thinking gave us the bonus point try from a lineout on the Agen 22 as Tommy Taylor took the ball down the touchline and Cillian Willis sneaked in at the corner.

We did wobble at the hour, and leaked two tries in quick succession to let Agen come back to 34-21 with about ten minutes to go. When Rob Miller put the restart straight into touch, it just started to look like it was all going to unravel again and Agen battered at our line. But a strong tackle forced an Agen knock on, we won a free kick at the scrum and cleared our lines.  We finished the game marching downfield with a succession of penalties to touch and lineouts, before Scott Mathie nipped round the narrow side of a ruck on the Agen 22 and crossed on the right.

So what’s going on? Well, the forwards are looking a lot more robust. A solid scrum and a competitive lineout is a pretty good foundation and I did like the McKenzie/Ostrikov second row, which looked pretty mean and did a good deal of the ‘down and dirty’ work you want to see. Cillian Willis looks a right handful, while our centre pairing looked lively, and Andrew Higgins’ acceleration and eye for a gap made him a constant threat. All round, it was a very good team performance, but I cannot object at all to the choice of Nick Macleod as official Man of the Match. It’s back to the AP next, then, with Falcons at EP and Tigers away, and it’ll be interesting to see how this season’s visit to Welford Road compares with last year’s......