By Cap'n Major Bloodnok
September 13 2016

Back again after an eventful summer of new signings, new owners, new sponsor, new kit and (hopefully) new purpose. Was last season's sixth place an overachievement? Could the team kick on despite the loss of several influential players? How would the new signings shape up? It should be an interesting next nine months...

We turned up at The Brook feeling like men arriving at an oasis after three months crossing a rugby-free desert. There was the coach waiting to take us to the game, there was the front door and there was the bar…

Just time for a quick scoop and we’re on the coach and it’s just like summer never happened.

The shark tank looks a lot bigger than it did; stand at the bar and the stage seems a long way away. Hard to hear sometimes (and sometimes that’s a blessing). Then the first disappointment — no plastic barrels of real ale like last year. A quick enquiry: “have you got any real ale?”. She points to an IPA tap. Someone needs to inform her that “real ale” and “gas pumped” are not phrases that belong together.

We try the IPA (gassy) and then discover Mooooooj’s bar. The queue’s huge, though, so probably wouldn’t have got served much before Christmas anyway. Maybe he’ll be there again for Glos. I know we’re there for the rugby, but expecting us to watch whilst drinking dishwaterJohn Smith’s puts a bit of a downer on the experience.

Back to my accustomed spot in the massive and all is finally right with the world (for a while…).

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Eventually, 8:15 arrived and the game kicked off—

Or it would have, but one of the touch judges was having problems with his corset and we had a five-minute delay while someone laced it up again for him.

Finally, Mumford and Sons got the game going but, within a minute, we had one of those things that you never want to see on a rugby pitch: a player spark out on the grass with medics close around and the stretcher making its way over. TJ was tackled on a typical bullocking run, and his head came into contact with Marler’s shoulder. (Marler, incidentally, was sporting facial hair that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Ripper Street.)

After a 10-minute delay, TJ went off on the stretcher and play resumed (he’s OK, we’re told).

From the restart, we were treated to something many of us had been anticipating: a mazy, slippery run from Notorious. It’s too soon to be making comparisons with a certain other elusive character, but the early signs are good.

I admit to having a few qualms seeing him lining up against “Scotlande” Yarde, but these proved unfounded, partly because Notorious acquitted himself well, but mostly because Yarde (and Visser, come to that) was fairly anonymous for most of the game.

After five minutes of game time (2½ hours of real time), the ref pinged Quins for holding on in front of the posts. And here Sale made a real departure from last season’s script: a left-footed flyhalf named Danny sporting a sleeve tattoo stepped up to the kicking tee and made the first of five out of five kicks at goal. Three-nil and the game was all Sale. There were signs of a team getting to know each other, of course. Four new players in the backs: the aforementioned Notorious and Mumford and Sons, along with scrum half Mike Phillips-Screwdriver and the romantic poet Lord Byron at full back.

Lord Byron had made a decent start, secure under the high ball, positioning good and a reasonable kick despite having what appeared to be two bananas on his feet.

The forwards had a much more familiar look, with just Ulrika Johnson taking over from Vadeeeeeem! in the front row. This familiarity was evident in the lineouts, as Sale had a 100% record on their own throw, and nicked several Quins throws as well. Given that it was Briggsy chucking in, I think we’ve developed a new secret weapon over the summer: Bryn’s Magic Magnetic Beard, which guides the ball unerringly into his or Josh’s paws.

Such was the case on 13 minutes as Briggsy delivered the ball to Josh. The forwards set up the maul, Quins brought it down and Mumford and Sons made the score 6-0.

Nine-nil followed about five minutes later, and we were starting to feel fairly comfortable. Neither side was looking particularly sprightly, but Sale had had much the better of the first quarter.

A series of penalties and close-range lineouts over the next five minutes eventually resulted in Robshaw flopping over the line, ball in hand. Quins’ robotic kicking machine, Evans, added the two points to make the score 9-7.

And that’s how the score remained until half time. Millsy got carded on 32 minutes, but the forwards managed the time well, stuffing it up the jumper for eight minutes, ably aided by Phillips-Screwdriver doing his world-famous impression: “man moving through treacle”.

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The second half was mostly less eventful than the first half, except for all the wrong reasons.

On 47 minutes, Bryn’s Magic Magnetic Beard took the lineout ball, Quins dropped the subsequent maul and Sale went for another lineout 10 metres out. Bryn’s Beard took it again and a couple of phases later Quins were down to 14 as Owen Evans took a ten-minute break for infringing after the ref had warned them.

Another 5-metre lineout, another catch for Bryn’s Magnetic Beard and suddenly Boris was spidering his way over the line for the touchdown. Another two points from the ginger boot and Sale were now two scores up at 16-7.

The robotic kicking machine pulled that back to 16-10 on 53 minutes, but a couple of minutes after that, a chip and catch from Will.I.Sign made inroads into Quins territory. The following ruck saw a second yellow for Quins and a bit of handbags between Danny Care and Mike Phillips-Screwdriver. The ginger one restored the 9-point advantage with what would prove the last score of the game, although not the last talking point.

That came ten minutes from time when Josh was floored by a Luamanu no-arms shoulder charge to the head. The ref looked at several views of the incident before finally delivering the red card that looked so thoroughly deserved.

From there the match wound down to the final whistle and a deserved victory.

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Verdict: a solid performance from a team still getting to know each other. Not a great game, especially compared to the Deakin-inspired back moves of last season, but they’ll come. Quins were poor, their wings seeing hardly any ball all evening. Denying them the bonus point could be important at the tail-end of the season, so this was very much a case of “job done”.

Next up, Gloucester and time for revenge for that record-spoiling one pointer last season.