By Kentish Shark
October 4 2004

The faithful made their annual pilgrimage over the Pennines to take on our nearest rivals again. Would we be able to out-shout the Leeds fans? Would the team return to the top of the table? Kentish Shark emerges from an alcohol-induced stupor to give us his impressions of the game.

I discovered something this weekend, 6.30 on a sunday morning does in fact exist and it is not a very nice place to be, especially when one's last memory is of downing a tequila and vodka at approx 12.30 the previous night. There was a rugby match to go to though (in fact there were two!) so I peeled myself off of the bedcovers and an hour and a half later was stood outside Heywood Road ready to board the first Sale Sharks Supporters' Club coach to Leeds.

An absence of traffic meant we made record time and turned up at Headlingley to find the place crawling with Sale supporters but also that the bar had not yet opened. Much complaining and standing around in the car park later the doors opened for us to be told 'Sorry, we don't open till 3'. Fortunately this was said in jest so we happily filed into the building and quickly filled the place with beer-supping Sale fans.

The reason for the early start was so that we could also watch the Sale Jets vs Leeds game which was scheduled as a curtain raiser for the Sharks vs Tykes. A good crowd of several hundred (mostly Sale) fans were entertained to an excellent performance of running rugby from the Jets as they ran out convincing winners 57-17. Highlights included a cracking solo try from a blind-side move by scrum half Mark Simpson-Daniel, who spied a gap in the stretched leeds defence and showed great pace to out gas the covering full back and go in at the corner. The best try of the game was scored by right wing Matt Riley who chased back to cover a deep kick into his own half, collected, then threw a fantastic dummy pass to the supporting full back to totally bamboozle the chasing Leeds backs, sprinted down the line, passed inside to the supporting centre, collected the return pass and touched down in the corner. The quality of the youngsters' rugby was somewhat overshadowed by the sheer ineptitude of the referee who made a number of complete howlers. It goes some way to explain the quality of Premiership referees when you see how appalling the second string are!!

Having been treated to a feast of tries from the Jets the large number of visiting fans were even more optimistic about the main event and by kick-off had again commandeered a large section of the Headlingley South Stand and turned it into a modern-day Birtles. A corner of the uncovered west-stand was also taken over by the newly formed 'Sea-Bass fan club' all wearing their 'You've been Cha-bad' tee-shirts and making loads of noise whenever their hero got the ball, more on them later.

Finally it was time for kick-off and it wasn't long before Sale won a penalty and Charlie kicked for a line-out on the 22. Sale won the lineout and managed to drive a rolling maul all the way to the line for Titts to touch down. Charlie missed the conversion but it was 5-0 and only 2 minutes played, this was going to be easy! Sale continued to exert pressure although they were somewhat undone in the first-half by an uncharacteristically poor lineout. A couple of penalties were traded to bring the score to 8-6 in Sale's favour, but mistakes were being made and despite good possession and territory the backs couldn't quite breach the excellent Leeds defence.

Mark Regan left the field with an injured hand relatively early on and this contributed to Sale's dominance in the scrum. All game the Sale pack were able to disrupt the Leeds scrum, although referee Lander frequently gave Leeds respite by either penalising Sale or giving Leeds a free kick. In the first half Sea-Bass had a number of his trademark rampaging runs into the Leeds defense, on one occasion almost getting up to the line before unloading only to see the ball knocked on by a supporting player in his wake. Jason Robinson was inspirational as ever, on one occasion slipping under the high ball yet still managing to catch it and scamper 30 or 40 metres upfield. Sale's best chance of the half came from a lovely chip over the Leeds defence from Charlie Hodgson but Stan just failed to collect with the line at his mercy. A penalty late in the half from Charlie meant that Sale reached half time 11-6 ahead, but feeling that somehow it should have been more.

The second half went much the same as the first, although the line-out was markedly better. Again Leeds' defence was excellent, with either that or a Sale error causing numerous promising opportunities to break down. On the 54th minute, however, Leeds struck with an excellent break through the centres from deserved Man Of The Match Chris Bell, who then offloaded to Albanase who was held up just before the line. Bell collected the offload to finish off the move that he started for a very well worked try. Bell's previous club, Harlequins, let the player go during the summer and, given their start to the season, must be regretting that decision now. Fortunately for Sale, Gordon Ross missed the conversion leaving the scores tied at 11-11.

From then on it was pretty much all Sale attacking but just falling short because of errors or good Leeds defence. The best try scoring chance of the half was when Jason Robinson scythed through the Leeds defence but the pass to Mark Cueto, who with Stan got very little ball all game, went behind and Cueto was unable to add to his try scoring tally for the season. The backs were muted for much of the game with Leeds flanker Parks slowing down Sale ball Neil Back style giving the Leeds defence time to adjust. The centre partnership of Todd and Chris Rhys Jones were then put under pressure so stopping Sale bringing their 'Wing Commanders' into the game in the way they would have liked to.

Sale did finally get on the scoresheet in the second half, however, when after some great forward play Sale managed to manufacture a position in front of the posts from where Charlie popped over a simple drop goal to bring the score to 14-11 to Sale with 10 minutes to go. Sale continued to pressure Leeds as they searched desperately for a try to put clear air between the sides. Even the Sea-Bass Fan Club's rendition of the Marseilleise to the words of 'Chabal, Chabal' wasn't able to inspire a score, despite the appreciation of its recipient.

The final whistle blew, and the Sale fans cheered their relief. It wasn't a great performance but to pick up a win away against a solid Leeds outfit when not playing to our full potential was a good result. The players for the second year running graciously thanked their adoring legions in the South Stand, and Sea-Bass went over personally to thank his fan club, and was rewarded with a tee-shirt of his very own. So all in all it was a successful day out, tinged with a bit of disappointment that we didn't rediscover our outstanding form of the previous week, but happy in the knowledge that we are still five from five, and sitting pretty at the top of the league!