Did Sam James persuade Jason Robinson’s scriptwriter to come out of retirement? He left off the valiant late conversion effort but, otherwise, this was a home swan song of near-perfection.
I’m walking around very carefully at the moment, making sure I don’t bump into things or do anything to cause me to wake up from this rather pleasant dream in which Sale have gone from a team bumbling through matches and sinking down the table to one that has taken twenty points from the last four games and is in with a chance of play-offs again.
I arrived at the ground suffering that normal background level of nervous panic that is part and parcel of having supported Sale for thirty years. I suspect that, even if we win the next three Championships back to back and the European Champions Cup a couple of times, I’ll still be expecting us to bugger it up at Kingston Park or contrive to lose at home to Leicester.
I’ve been checking: I have scores going back to the 2011-12 season and, before the 18-19 season, we had beaten Leicester twice in fourteen league matches. Since then, we have beaten them nine games out of eleven (plus the semi-final last year). And yet I still half expect them to turn us over. I remember in the early days at the AJ Bell (as was), I was talking to Briggsy – who was still playing – midweek before the Tigers home game. As I left, I asked for one favour: please beat Leicester at the weekend. He gave me a wink and said “We’re going to”. They did and it felt so good because it was such a rarity.
So that was the state of my emotions as I stood on my accustomed spot waiting for kick-off; the all-over angst enhanced by the almost knock-out nature of the game. One slip-up and that was it: season over. Get it right and all you earned was the chance to try again against even more difficult opposition. But more on that later.
The nerves weren’t particularly settled when George mucked up the kick-off, giving Tigers a scrum on half-way. They frayed even further three minutes in, when we were privileged(?) to witness that rarest of rarities, a Dan Cole try. Five-nowt down, and I’d barely scoffed my chicken balti pie.
Hearts restarted five minutes later as Manu sent Haskell-Collins hurtling backwards, setting up a ruck for Gus to snipe to the line and get the equalising score, which George converted to put Sale ahead.
To add insult to injury, Haskell-Collins was adjudged to have made head contact with Manu whilst being flattened and was given a ten-minute rest.
Five minutes into the sin-bin, Sale had a line-out about twenty metres from the Tigers line. With the Leicester defence worrying about another Manu charge, Ben Curry ran around the front of the line-out and popped the ball over to Tommy Taylor who had an unopposed run to the line for try number two. Another conversion put us nine points ahead and cruising…
Except that, soon after, Gus threw a bit of a telegraphed pass, which Matt Scott intercepted to reduce the lead to two points.
Even at this stage, the scoreline flattered Leicester. It seemed to me that they had little to offer in attack, no incisiveness, no real threat. By contrast, Sale continued their recent form: passing cleanly, offloading, moving the point of attack and, five minutes from the break, clinically punishing mistakes.
Leicester had a defensive line-out near their own ten-metre line. Inexplicably, Clare threw long, into the arms of Tommy Taylor, who barged past the ten-metre line. Gus passed it to Ford, who handed it on to Manu, who crashed his way up toward the twenty-two.
Then Gus passed to Bev, Bev chicken-winged it inside to Ben, Ben sent it out to Flats, and then Flats came back inside to – inevitably – Sam James and the biggest roar of the night. I reckon they would have heard that back at Heywood Road.
It would have been enough for Sam to have scored at some point during the game. That he did it at the end of such a crisp response to an error made it special. That’s the sort of play we’ve been waiting for all season.
Shillcock kicked a penalty (Pollard looked to be having ankle problems) to reduce the lead to six at halftime: still a flattering score for them.
The second half started with Tigers giving up a penalty which George – for the second time – failed to put into touch. However, the Leicester clearance kick also stayed infield and Sale set up the attack that would ultimately lead to the bonus-point try. You’ll have to go to the full-match replay but it’s worth watching the build to that try from that initial missed touch and reflect that, four or five games ago, that would have fizzled out.
Anyway, the upshot was that somebody – not sure who (😉️) – put a perfect grubber behind the Tigers’ defence for Flats to latch on to and run in one of the easiest tries he’ll score.
The lead went up to sixteen midway through the half when Fordy kicked a penalty and we were starting to believe, especially given that Tigers looked to be running out of puff and any clue how to get a foothold in the game.
We’d had maybe twenty minutes of not much happening when Manu jumped on another Leicester mistake and charged upfield in a manner that took me right back to Parc des Princes many years ago and the sight of Seabass apparently running through mud to eventually score under the posts. Manu didn’t get that far but still managed to set up a promising attack that eventually led to a penalty for Sale five metres out.
Raffi took it quickly but was tackled from offside by Charlie Clare, who saw yellow for his troubles. Unfortunately, Clare was the second tackler and the first guy was onside, so the penalty try couldn’t be given.
Around this time, we got to say goodbye to Cobus and Manu, both of them getting standing ovations as they left the field. Thanks, guys, it’s been an absolute pleasure…
With a couple of minutes of the yellow card left, Leicester got their third try as a carbon copy of their first, except that Martin scored, not Cole (you can’t expect him to score twice in a decade).
And that was pretty much it. We saw out the remaining few minutes until Raffi booted the ball into the crowd and brought an end to all the fun.
Once again, it seems a bit churlish to single out a few players from a team effort but I want to recognise Tommy Taylor, who had a stormer on his 150th appearance; Bevan Rodd, who should be at the forefront of Borthwick’s mind right now; Ben Curry, ditto; George Ford, who outplayed Pollard in every facet of the game; and Manu, who had one of his best games in a Sale shirt. (And Cobus, and J-L, and, and, and…)
But the evening, the game, the plaudits and the biggest cheers should go first and foremost to Sam James, legend.
So, here we are; twenty points from the last four games, up to a precarious fourth in the table and all to play for on the final day. Our fate is in our hands; we don’t need other results to go our way; all we have to do is beat Saracens at their gaff…
Bugger.
And yet I think we could do it. We should have beaten them there last season but we made too many bad choices. We’re good enough to do it, I just wonder if the psychological barrier might prove too much: no matter how you try to ignore it, there’s got to be that little demon taking up residence at the back of the mind.
I’d also be a bit happier if we’d beaten Leicester as comprehensively as we should have. Once again, we scored four in quick time (forty-three minutes) but didn’t cross the line for the rest of the game. We’ve done this several times before, too. The difference then was that we raced to three tries and then failed to score. That’s four try bonus points we’ve missed out on because of that.
But, for me, the killer was losing to Bristol and Gloucester, two games that we really should have won but put in – let’s face it – abject performances. Winning either of those would have seen us second now, above Sarries and, like them, qualified for the semis. On such things do seasons turn.
When I saw the fixtures at the start of the season, my first thought was to hope that we weren’t going to be relying on a win on the last weekend. So much for hoping…
But this is it; the last throw of the dice. The lads have put in a phenomenal shift to come back from that awful spell to be here. And ‘here’ is the chance to not only get to a second semi-final in a row but to do it achieving something we haven’t managed yet – a win at the StoneX – and send Agustín, Cobus, Manu and Sam off in style.
But that’s for the future; for now, let’s celebrate the leavers and their contributions to the club, wish them all the best and hope to maybe see them back here one day. Go well, guys, and thanks from all of us.
an old grey dog 