By Whaley Shark
November 3 2012

Well, a week may be a long time in politics, but this one’s seemed like an eternity in the wacky world of Sale Sharks. However, it’s good to have some rugby to talk about again, and even better to have a win. So this is how I saw it......

 

I was bloody nervous in the stand before the match, and goodness only knows what the players felt like. And, indeed, I thought we got off to a nervous start, letting the kick-off bounce, and giving Irish a decent attacking position from the off. But we repelled that and the early exchanges ended with an Irish lineout in their 22, which we stole and, as the maul trundled towards the Irish tryline, Irish infringed and we won a penalty.

For about the next ten minutes, play was almost all between the 22 metre lines, until we won a penalty at a scrum, put it into touch just inside the Irish 22, won the lineout and rolled to five metres out. A sweetly timed pass from Danny Cipriani to Nick Macleod let Nick wriggle and twist over the line to put us 8-0 ahead with almost quarter of the game gone.

Although London Irish kept plugging away, a succession of errors in the difficult, wet conditions prevented them from building sustained pressure, although we gave them a kickable penalty to get their score off the mark and, a few minutes later, had a narrow escape as they charged down a clearance kick but knocked on as the tryline opened up for their attackers. We livened up then, breaking the Irish defence but losing possession and setting off a kicking duel, which ended with a scrum to us in midfield. A sharp grubber through the Irish defence, followed by a defensive fumble, gave us an attacking scrum from which a Danny Cipriani reverse pass set Jonny Leota up to dummy and dance his way through three defenders for our second try of the night. Although an Andy Powell break set up another good position, we couldn’t make it tell, and Irish were able to relieve the pressure.

Irish seemed to have had a bit of a talking-to at half time, because they came out and had a go at us, forcing us to kick the ball dead and setting up camp in our 22, and eventually getting a kickable penalty. We responded with ambition, kicking a couple of penalties for the corner and trying a couple of cheeky quick moves, but none of these efforts yielded a score and, indeed, the next score was a third Irish penalty which brought the score to 15-9 and, with 15 minutes to go, set the nerves jangling just a bit. Surely we couldn’t chuck it away now?

No, actually, we couldn’t. Although Irish had a good deal of possession over the next ten minutes, we kept them at arm’s length with some well organised and committed defence. Eventually we regained possession and Cillian Willis made a sharp break, setting up a scrum on the Irish 10 metre line. We won a penalty from that, taking us to 18-9 then, as Irish started to scramble, another penalty to take us 21-9 up. As the clock ran down, we kept Irish penned in their own 22 and that was that. Played 8, won 1 in the AP looks a good deal better.

It was a much better performance than we’ve seen so far. Much better discipline, so the opposition didn’t pick up soft, early points, much better defensive organisation, a working scrum and lineout With a more competitive pack, we looked a very different side, much more composed and inventive. More of the same please!

Stating the obvious, that was a vital win. The difference between bridging a four or five point gap, and a nine or ten point one is just HUGE. It’s going to be a long slog, and we’re going to need all sorts of people to do us favours, but we’ve taken the first and perhaps largest step on the path to possible survival. Well done all.

Oh, and my Man of the Match, Fraser Mackenzie, by a short head from many others, with honourable mentions for Ross Harrison, Richie Vernon and Tommy Taylor.