New kit, new faces, a new campaign, same old squeaky bum time.
Oh, how I’ve missed that feeling of watching Sale spend five minutes on their own goal line, doggedly defending a slender lead against a fired-up attack.
Well, I say “missed”…
Mind you, I seem to remember that the opening match last season (also at home to Saints) wasn’t exactly a walkover.
Goes off to check last season’s report…
If you want a phrase that epitomises Sale Sharks over the seasons, it would be “that was a lot closer than it should have been”, AKA “squeaky bum time”.
…I thought so.
If a good sphincter workout first up against Northampton is a prerequisite to a successful season, sign me up.
Things didn’t exactly get off to the most auspicious of starts, either. Two minutes in, and Saints have stretched the Sale defence to let Freeman in in the corner. Smith – ominously – kicked the touchline conversion and we’re down by seven and wondering what had just happened.
But then, a couple of minutes later, Sale were applying some pressure of their own when Rob fired the most outrageous miss-pass to Tom Roebuck, who managed to roll through the tackle and get the point of the ball on the grass just before his leg hit the touchline. One conversion to equal Smith’s earlier and we were all square again.
Then, five minutes later, from a 5-metre attacking line-out, they span the ball across the field for O’Flats to touch down in the left-hand corner. Rob missed what should have been a slightly easier conversion, but we now had the lead that we would never relinquish, try as we might…
Halfway through the half, a double blow for Sale as, first, Tommy Taylor went off for an HIA from which he never returned, then JL hobbled off a minute later with what looked to be a leg injury. Enter Ethan Caine and the most welcome return of Cobus Wiese.
Fin Smith and Rob traded penalties before Caine bundled over the line from a rolling maul to take us into half-time twenty points to ten up and looking good for the bonus point and a decent win.
There then followed a second half.
Saints scored a – slightly flukey – breakaway try when a promising Sale attack faltered but, apart from that, not a lot else to write home about.
Apart from some goal-line defensive work by Sale, which, had this been ancient Greece, Ridley Scott would be making films about, that is. With time running out and a vulnerable five-point lead, Northampton threw everything at Sale’s line. Then Rob got binned: bums were clenched, breath was held, fingernails were chewed to the knuckle until…
Until…
The referee signalled a penalty to Sale. As the guy at Mission Control said, fifty-four years ago, “You’ve got a bunch of guys about to turn blue; we’re breathing again.”
Game over, four points in the bag. That’ll do, donkey. That’ll do.
I’m assuming that failing an HIA means that TT won’t be available for the next game (and if he is, he shouldn’t be…). So, unless LCD is pronounced fit†, we’re a bit shy of experience at hooker. Caine did a great job against Northampton – and on the other occasions I’ve seen him – but it’s asking a lot for him to step up to the senior role this early in his career. And who’s on the bench? Thompson? Talk about a baptism of fire…
At the time of writing, I’ve not heard anything about Jean-Luc’s injury: hopefully, no news is good news. If not, we can take comfort in the return of Cobus, who took to the game as if he had several months of inactivity to make up for.
I think we accidentally signed a demon when we went for Ernie. The guy was everywhere – there are going to be a lot of teams this season looking around at the end of a game and wondering what just happened. As someone said: “like Jono but without the yellow cards”.
And let’s hear it for Dugdale… he just improves with every outing. I’m looking forward to watching his development over this season.
O’Flats is looking more like the player that we saw this time last year. He seemed to me a bit flat (“flat” – ho, ho) toward the end of last season but I thought he was showing a lot of that more dynamic player again. Not so much for the try but for all the off-the-ball work he does: chasing kicks, plugging gaps, being in the right place at the right time, that sort of thing.
Carps has just picked up as if there hasn’t been an off-season. Fearless and safe under the high ball (Steward? Who he?), it was encouraging to see him and Roebuck chasing kicks and regathering them – something we did early last season but seemed to lose the knack of later on.
As for the match itself: it was a very encouraging first half, but what happened in the second? We just went completely off the boil. I’m going to assume that it’s just first-game rustiness, a reaction to the first really high-intensity test since Twickenham.
As for Leicester, who knows? We beat them three times last season and six times out of the last seven meetings, so they should hold no fears. Also, Bristol beat them fairly comfortably, so I have high hopes of kicking off the season with two wins.
This means we’ll probably get a tonking…
SAMP™ is non-committal, though. Short-term form suggests a Sale win, long-term favours Tigers. Either way, it’s likely to be tight; I foresee more squeaky bum times ahead.
| SAMP–5 | Leicester 20 – 23 Sale |
| SAMP–10 | Leicester 24 – 20 Sale |
Let’s go…
†F-I-T, pronounced “fit” – one for the Milligan fans, there
an old grey dog 