There comes a point during a match where you realise that the worst that can happen is a draw and you say to yourself “I’d’ve taken that before the game”, but you know that’s a lie.
It’s a lie because there comes a point when watching a team develop out of mid-table mediocrity where you realise that you won’t “take” anything other than winning. Oh, you might grudgingly acknowledge that the opposition might – just – have deserved a draw following a hard-fought match, but you’ll still see it as points dropped.
As it happened, no “grudging acknowledgement” was needed because – spoiler alert! – Leicester didn’t get that converted try that they needed. The ending wasn’t as fraught as last week, since (a) we couldn’t lose [OK, technically we could have, but – come on] and (b) the dogged defence was happening in midfield, making a score less likely. There was still a palpable sense of relief when Sam Bedlow turned the ball over at that final breakdown but it was more of a “finally!” than a “phew!”.
Mind you, the first ten minutes or so were less pleasant. Leicester were pressing pretty much from the off, with Sale coughing up a series of penalties that must have come close to earning a yellow card within five minutes. To make it worse, DDP went off after a couple of minutes for an HIA, bringing Rouban Birch on for the first of his stints on the pitch (Happily DDP returned ten minutes later).
When Brown sliced through the defence for the first try after seven minutes, you could have been forgiven for thinking that it was going to be a long afternoon.
No so – a couple of minutes later, Sale did some deft surgery of their own on Leicester’s defence, as Gus tried a snipe down the side of a ruck. He managed to stay upright through the tackle and offload to Ernie, who bullocked his way past a couple of defenders before shipping the ball off to Roebuck, who scored under the posts. Ten minutes in and we were ahead. Apart from ten minutes at 17–17 in the second half, we kept a lead through to the end.
Don’t let the tiny contact with Sharky’s arm that wiped it off detract from how good O’Flats’s (non-)try was. Quick movement left from the breakdown and O’Flaherty was there to run around the outside of the defence to score in the corner.
Around the half-hour mark, Dan du Preez somehow managed to ground the ball on the line despite what appeared to be half the population Leicester lined up in front of him. The expanded lead only lasted a few minutes, though, as Liebenberg burrowed through Sale’s goal-line defence to bring it back to a two-point advantage.
Which should have been a nine-point advantage at half-time. Sam James dinked a neat ball over the defence for Roebuck to run onto and come within a gnat’s of scoring. He was brought down just short by Hassell-Collins with Shillcock sliding in with the tackle assist. I’ve watched it a few times and I can’t see it as anything other than “tackler not releasing” – penalty Sale; possibly penalty try, given how close it was to the line.
But the penalty was awarded the other way and we went into the break with a slender lead.
Five minutes into the second half, Rob kicked a penalty to extend the lead to five, just enough to hold off Hassell-Collins’s unconverted try fifteen minutes later.
At some point between those two events, I realised that Sale were actually looking quite comfortable. That is, I didn’t have that internal feeling of vague dread that has been a constant companion over the years that I’ve been following them.
Even the pressure that Leicester were applying and Hassell-Collins’s nearly-try didn’t do much to bring that old angst back.
After the equalising score, Sale seemed to wake up and took the initiative back with some impressive moves of their own. A brief period of Leicester attack – following a 22–22 kick to touch – quickly died when Sam James intercepted a pass and cleared downfield.
Then we got a scrum out to the left and suddenly there’s Rob running past defenders like they were mannequins to score under the posts to finally restore the seven-point lead that we wouldn’t relinquish.
The final ten minutes (plus six minutes in the red) were fought almost entirely between the 22s. A lovely run by Reed looked promising but ended with the ball being dislodged in the tackle.
The final six minutes post-eighty were entirely Leicester possession but they spent the majority of it inside their own half. When they did manage to take play over halfway (following a scrum restart because the play had gone too near an injured Arron Reed), they couldn’t get into the 22.
Then Bedlow stuck his mitts into a ruck, got hold of the ball and there was the penalty to finally end it.
Job done. Again.
As I hinted at earlier, we are currently watching, in real-time, the evolution of a, frankly, mediocre team into a team to be feared. It started under Dimes with the introduction of the Saffer contingent. They provided a scaffold on which the ultimate team could be built. I say scaffold because they were there to provide strength and stability until the structure could stand on its own. And I don’t mean that harshly, the contribution of the like of RJvR, LdJ, Faf, Jono and the others has been (and continues to be) of immense value and they will always have a place in the pantheon of Sale greats. But the ultimate goal, it seems to me, is more than just a team that plays in the North-West, but a team of the North-West. And that means developing players who either come from here or who have made a home here. Oh, there will always be a smattering of imports – the carbon in the steel, so to speak – but the core of the team will be local.
In terms of getting to where we want to be, I think we are seeing (and have been seeing for several seasons) a process of: make an incremental change, get that embedded, another change, embed that, rinse and repeat.
As an individual example, look at Gus. Did a fantastic job last season and was rightly praised for being a lynchpin of Sale’s success. But no one would have put “mercurial” down when describing his play – you wouldn’t have compared him to, say, Danny Care. But neither was he “plodding”: rather, say “efficient”. He spent that time in the limelight consolidating the basics, getting to the breakdown quickly, improving the box kick, and developing a wicked pass. What he didn’t seem to have was a snipe. It was the first point of difference anyone mentioned between him and Raffi: Raffi posed more of a threat down the side of the ruck.
But watch this game. Now confident in the basics, he can start adding to his game – like a couple of neat little snipes that just took the defence off-guard. Slowly and incrementally is the way to build something that will last.
We’re still not there, yet, but we’re close and it’s fascinating watching it happen.
So, plaudits. Van Rhyn, after two games, is looking like the signing of the season. He’s an absolute monster around the park; this season could be fun just watching him alone. Cobus has picked up where he left off as if he hasn’t been out for seven months. Tommy T brings an air of stability, especially at the line-out; we need him to stay fit for a few more weeks.
I have to make special mention of the backs under the high ball: I don’t think I saw a single one dropped. O’Flats especially was imperious, commanding that bit of space that the ball was due to land in every time. I’ve talked about Gus and Rob pretty much goes without saying these days, so I want to single out Sam Bedlow for special mention. You can argue the merits of boshers versus distributors and so on but surely it comes down to “How effective is the centre combination?” and I’d say it’s looking pretty effective already. Oddly, it’s the very air of “nothing special going on” that suggests that Sam2 mark II is working pretty well. There’s no fuss, no sense of panic there. I think it’s that absence of drama – spread across the team – that contributed to that lack of vague dread that I mentioned before.
Exeter away next. I think this is going to be the biggest challenge of these opening rounds. Although the Chiefs lost at Quins, and I don’t put too much weight on the size of their win over Sarries, there is something different about them this year that should give us pause. They seem to have realised that the law changes made a couple of years ago are the cause of their last two poor seasons. Specifically, the change around being held up over the line nullified what was probably their most potent threat.
Watching the last couple of games, they’ve lost the reliance on the pack (probably because that’s where they lost the most name players), so they’ve shifted tactics. I still think they’re beatable, but it’s going to be harder work than this one, I suspect.
SAMP™ is not hopeful:
| SAMP–5 | Exeter 23 – 19 Sale |
| SAMP–10 | Exeter 27 – 23 Sale |
Not so much, though, that I don’t think we can surprise them.
an old grey dog 