I will admit to having a little chuckle at the end of the match, seeing all those empty bits of the stands that had, five minutes and two tries before, been fully occupied.
I wasn’t expecting too much out of this game, given the last four times we’ve played them. They’re the current champions: they may have blipped a bit in the first two rounds, but the way they demolished Leicester the previous week suggested that they were back on track.
Also, our injury problems just seem to get worse. Losing Ross against the Stormers meant that we were starting Tumy Onasanya against Uini Antonio, with Asher on the bench as a loosehead replacement. Talk about boys v men (but more on that later).
I thought Sale actually started pretty well, having a fair bit of possession and territory. But then an attempted grubber bounced off a shin and Leyds was there to scoop it up and run it in, despite a despairing tackle from Reedy.
From there, Stade Brobdingnag started to dominate the play, helped to some extent by the wind in Sale’s faces, reducing and affecting any kick option they might have wanted to take.
It may be blue-tinted specs (I’ve only watched the instant highlights) but it seemed to me that neither the ref nor the ball did us any favours in that first half. Behind the posts is not the best location from which to judge offside, but it felt as if we were getting regularly pinged, while Stade were getting away with it.
Given that the final penalty count was 10-14 in our favour, that might be a false impression, although Stade were pinged extensively in the second half. Maybe the ref can only point south…
Halfway through the half, we had the first of two serious injuries, this one to Jonny Hill. Watching from the other end, it wasn’t immediately obvious that anything had happened. We could see that someone was down but it was only when play started to go back towards him that the referee called a halt. The brief replay shown on the big screen showed what appeared to be a Sale player doing a dolphin dive out of the back of a maul and falling to the ground. It was only the length of the stoppage and the appearance of a stretcher that started to hint at this being a serious injury. As I understand it, Jonny suffered a dislocated knee, which has a recovery time of about eight weeks, so he may be back for the business end of the season. We wish him all the best for a speedy recovery.
The rest of the first half was something of a turgid struggle, with Stade kicking three penalties to add to the try and go in at halftime with a sixteen-point to-nil advantage.
Any thoughts that we might get back into the game in the second half were knocked by, firstly, the wind seeming to drop and change direction during the break and, secondly, Stade scoring two tries within six minutes of the restart.
By the time Tom Roebuck scored the first try on 60 minutes, we had had four potential tries wiped off for having a foot in touch. What difference a few inches in each case could have made.
The try came as Sale pushed hard against what appeared to be a tiring Stade team (being that huge across the board will take its toll). Even though they were replacing most of their big buggers with even bigger buggers, Sale were putting them under the cosh. They were giving up penalty after penalty until the ref finally lost patience and binned Hastoy in the 65th minute.
A minute later, Dulin clashed heads with Arron and was also given a ten-minute rest. So, they were now down to thirteen: could we get back into it?
When Creevy scored immediately from the penalty, it looked as if we might be in with a chance of hauling it back.
Our hopes were dashed five minutes later, though, as Seuteni intercepted a pass to run in for their fourth try. That made the gap twenty-five points with only ten minutes to go.
Then we got the second major injury in the game as Joel Sclavi suffered head trauma having got a tackle on Dan Du Preez wrong.
We, of course, wish Joel all the best and hope that he makes a full and quick recovery.
It was during this second, lengthy, stoppage that many spectators took the opportunity to get away smartly. After all, the game was gone: with about five minutes left Sale were not going to score the necessary twenty-six points to win the game and progress to the final sixteen. Also, it was now more than two hours since we’d kicked off, so, understandably, some might have felt it best to cut their losses.
Sometimes, taking a chance pays off…
…And sometimes, it doesn’t.
With three minutes to go, Sam Dugdale scored Sale’s third try and I remember thinking, “We’ve got time for a fourth, here…”
Yeah, right.
Yeah, right: a minute into the red, Veainu was flying down the wing to score in the corner and give Sale the bonus point to ensure at least second position among the Challenge Cup qualifiers.
I said last week:
I’m going to CORF my way out of this and say that Challenge Cup will do me and please don’t break anyone that may be needed for the week after.
And, yes, Challenge Cup will do me; although I’d’ve preferred a trip to Edinburgh over Swansea. But it seems you can’t rely on Exeter to do you a favour these days.
If you put on some really, really deep-blue tinted glasses, you could argue that we could have won that: four tries narrowly wiped off; two – arguably three – of their tries were opportunistic responses to small mistakes. Yep, we could have won by eight tries to one…
This is going to go down alongside the Leinster and Stormers matches as another bookmark in the growth and maturity of our academy players. That Tumy Onasanya played eighty minutes at loosehead (Asher came on, but as a back-row replacement for BenC) is mightily impressive. To face up against a pack like that and come out of it with your head held high…
Sale player of the match for me.
Nye had only been on the pitch for five minutes before Skelton went off but you could see him looking for an excuse to shape up to him. Proper scrum-half, Nye: like a terrier, he doesn’t consider the size of the guy he’s barking at.
(Talking of Skelton, props to the guy for taking the ribbing from the crowd in good heart – especially after being told to “pick someone your own size” after Gus had tackled him. I saw Arron have a piece of him, too.)
But, distractions aside, it’s back to the important stuff for one more push before the long break.
Away at Gloucester. We’re definitely without the England contingent: BenC, George, Tom Roebuck and LCD (LCD should have been with England but is now injured, so effectively the same thing). No Bev, Ross or TomC. Is SiMac due back? Please let it be so, to take some pressure off Tumy and Asher. No Jonny Hill, no TomC, no JLDP. Were Cobus and Ernie just being rested? Did DDP get re-injured when Scalvi tackled him?
No Raffi, no Manu, haven’t seen Joe Carpenter for a while. Luke has dropped off the radar again; is he still suffering from that injury a few weeks back?
[Updated: Hill is out for the season, Tom Ellis broke a toe having only just returned from injury. DDP OK, though.]
We were assured at the SSSC event that there were a few potentially returning from injury and that we would have a team, but you help wishing that the Six Nations had started a week earlier (or play a Premiership Cup round) and we were in the break, allowing them all to recover.
But we have to play this one isolated round of the Premiership before we can all put our feet up and watch England flatter to deceive once again…
According to SAMP™, we should narrowly take this one:
| SAMP-5 | Gloucester 21 – 26 Sale |
| SAMP-10 | Gloucester 24 – 25 Sale |
Maybe we should start with Tumy, Asher, Nye, Ricky and Bamber. And bring in Tristan Woodman while we’re at it. After all, if lads like that can put the wind up Leinster, Stormers and La Rochelle, what might they do to Gloucester?
an old grey dog 