To call this season a rollercoaster ride would be terribly clichéd… but also accurate.

Look at this graph:

More heart-stopping than Oblivion, more bum-clenching than Nemesis, this season Sale took us on a fun-filled¹ adventure, a journey through highs and lows, joy and despair— have I sold it to you, yet?

This was a season of high hopes and high expectations, following the heights of a return to Twickenham after seventeen years. We’d lost a few influential players and gained some promising new beef, but the team’s core remained.

It was also going to be a slightly experimental season, with the World Cup necessitating some adjustments and the introduction of a season shutdown over the Six Nations period.

OK, I’ll hold my hands up: I thought that the shutdown was a monumentally bad idea and that it could drive audiences away. It turns out that it may actually have had the opposite effect, given the crowds that turned up for Sale’s post-Six Nations home games. I haven’t got any actual figures to back it up, but my impression is that there have been more ‘good’ crowds (if not sellouts) in Salford than in previous seasons.

Where I do feel justified is in calling the European competition format an absolute clusterf— mess. I kind of forgave them a bit because it was a World Cup year and the tournament clashed with the traditional October games. But to introduce a home or away format instead of home and away was just ridiculous and grossly unfair to fans. Also, to drop the seeding system the year that we should have got a favourable draw was just insult on top of stupidity. At least we had COVID to blame for the previous format, which may have been silly, but we did get some decent away trips.

Still, no COVID and no World Cup next season, so we can go back to the old system of October, December and January rounds, three European away weekends and everyone’s happy, can’t we?

Sorry, what? They’re keeping the abomination that manages to combine the worst of all worlds?

Seriously?

What a bunch of pri—

Premiership rugby cup

My abiding memory of this let’s-do-something-while-the-World-Cup’s-on competition will be standing on the bank outside the clubhouse at Caldy trying to watch the game through a wall of water as a rain storm of Biblical proportions settled on The Wirral.

This competition provided the first hints that Sale weren’t kicking on from last season quite as hard as we’d expected or hoped. We’d already lost to Leicester and Newcastle before turning up at Mount Ararat where we put in a, frankly, lacklustre performance. True, a deluge can be a great leveller and Caldy did play particularly well but the team still looked a bit out of sorts to me.

I know that we then went on to stuff Ampthill – I really don’t enjoy such mismatches – but I still came away from those five games with a vague feeling of unease about whether we could replicate or improve on last season.

Premiership: part the first

That feeling of unease wasn’t helped when we struggled to beat Northampton first up but, then, an unexpected away win at Mumbley-Wumble Welford Road seemed to indicate that Sale had found some form and that we were on the way.

Alas, it turned out to be the top of one of those little hills on the rollercoaster that you get just before the big one. A week after the high of victory at Leicester, Sale were on the wrong end of a forty-three-nil hiding at Sandy Park. One step forward, two steps back…

But then… four wins in a row and we were on that long climb up to the top of the big hill. Three bonus-points wins and a low-scoring, a-bit-too-close-for-comfort victory over Bath saw us at the top of the league, first place, numero uno. Maybe we could go one better.

But, still, there was a nagging doubt. We’d let Newcastle – sad, sorry, abject Newcastle – score four tries against us at home. We didn’t really put them to the sword in that game until quite late on. And Bath at home: behind at half-time and only scraping through by virtue of a couple penalties in the second half.

Another stuffing – by thirty-three points – at Quins and a narrow, not terribly convincing, win at home to Sarries left Sale in the odd position of having won seven games from nine but with a negative points difference.

At the halfway point in the season, Sale were in second place and, had we known it, poised at the top of the big hill, in that brief stationary moment before the plunge…

Europe

I think I may have mentioned that I was a bit miffed at this season’s format for the European Champions’ Cup, which meant that we – well, most of us – only had one real option for a Euro away weekend. Not that there’s anything wrong with Dublin: it was a cracking trip and a good time was had by all. I think – I am viewing it through a haze of Guinness.

Dublin was brilliant, but we used to have three trips to choose from, at least one of them in France. Sorry, I’m not going to let this go: those in charge of the Euro competitions must hate the fans.

Anyway, our group of death went mostly as we feared, apart from a surprisingly comprehensive demolition of Stade Française and giving Leinster a bit of a scare by being ahead at half-time. We put up a spirited fight in South Africa against Stormers but Stade Rochelaise were just too big for us.

And it’s going to be much the same next season. I despair.

Premiership: part the second

Hold on to your hats and wave your arms for the flashy camera thing, because we’re going down.

Losing away to Northampton was not unexpected and – given the nature of the other two defeats – the losing bonus point was a… well, bonus. We dropped to third, but that was still recoverable with a home match coming up.

And it still rankles. All the others, including the stuffings at Exeter and Quins, I could live with. Not like; live with. But this one – the home defeat to Bristol – is still, for me, the one that ruined the season. Consider: win this one game – every other result exactly the same – this one game that we could and should have won; win that and we finish first, not third.

One win. A thirteen in the “W” column instead of a twelve and you can ignore the missed bonus points, they weren’t needed. Yes, it’s a sore point: bite me.

Mind you, losing to Gloucester at Kingsholme comes a close second in the “well, that really buggered up the season” stakes. Losing away is less hard than losing at home, but Glos were not playing well at the time – they didn’t play particularly well on the day – but we just couldn’t get it together.

Those two defeats dropped us four places in two rounds. It was starting to look as if we’d struggle to qualify for the Champions’ Cup next season.

Eight weeks laterrrrrrr…..

The Six Nations break gave us a chance to repair some broken bodies, catch our breath and have a much-needed rest, ready for the final push.

Bath away was probably the worst choice for a first game back to try to recover something from the wreckage of the season and so it proved, an eighteen-point defeat dropping us another place to eighth. But there were signs: that margin flattered Bath, it was tight until quite late into the match and Sale were looking more threatening than they had since, well, probably Bristol away, if I’m honest.

We’d hit the nadir. The only way the season could have got worse was if Newcastle ended on “Played 18 won 1” and we were the “1”. The ride was surely over; we’d left our stomachs behind up top, gurned at the camera on the way down and now we were on the final, slow roll into the station.

And then, a miracle happens…

If the disappointment of Bristol still irks me, then the endorphins generated by the next five games are still sloshing around my system.

Exeter came to Salford and were put to the sword. We were a missed conversion and their try away from coming out even for the season. And it was pretty much the same team that had run out of puff against Bath. The only changes were Ross instead of SiMac on the bench, O’Flats instead of Reed and a certain Curry, B. pushing Dugdale to the bench.

Quins came up the next week and were similarly dispatched. Revenge against the two teams that inflicted the heaviest defeats and ten league points to move up two places into the bargain.

Sweet.

That left three more games: Newcastle away – a definite banana-skin opportunity here; Leicester at home – we’ve had a good record against them the last few years; Saracens away, the one I’d been dreading since the fixtures first came out. We hadn’t beaten Sarries on their patch since 2006 and anything less than three wins left a play-off place uncertain.

You have to laugh: there we were, talking of play-offs given our position just two rounds previously. It’s a measure of how tight the top eight places were, though: no more than a gnat’s between second and eighth, if I recall correctly.

It’s a measure of how abject Falcons have been this season that even the presence of our much-revered former DoR, Steve the Diamond, couldn’t get them even close to us at a venue where we traditionally struggle. Thirty-five to fourteen, another bonus point, job’s a good ’un.

Leicester then fell by the wayside and, with one round left, we were magically fourth and in charge of our own destiny.

We went into that final game with the possibility of finishing anywhere between second and seventh, depending on exactly how all the games panned out.

As it turned out, the other games were irrelevant because we beat Sarries. At their gaff.

I tell a lie: one other game was relevant. If Saints had sent a proper team to Bath and denied them any points, we’d have been second. But they didn’t and we weren’t.

Premiership: the playoffs

And so, to Bath again but this time on the back of five wins on the trot and twenty-four points from a possible twenty-five. From wondering if we would be playing Challenge Cup next season to being eighty minutes from a return to Twickenham.

Not quite.

I’m not complaining. We put up a good fight, we scared them a bit and we came out of it with heads held high. We go again next year and go two better…

I’ve ’ad worse…

Looking back after a few weeks of quiet reflection, I think that bleak period felt so awful because it came as a sort of perfect storm of negatives.

Look at it this way: we went fourteen weeks between the home wins against Sarries and Exeter. Fourteen weeks without a win. Sounds awful, doesn’t it? But it was only seven games in total, four Premiership and three European. Two of those Euro games we didn’t expect to win and the other I didn’t really care about, other than as a way to start winning again.

As far as the Premiership goes, though, that fourteen weeks represented four games. Just four league defeats. Add the Exeter and Quins debacles and we lost six – SIX – games in the league. Only one other team had as good a record as ours. Every other team except Northampton lost more games than we did in the league.

If those four defeats had been spread out more, rather than one after the other, it wouldn’t have felt so bad. If the table hadn’t been so tight that a defeat could drop you two places, it wouldn’t have felt so bad. If those league defeats hadn’t been accompanied by having to play the Irish and Brobdingnagian national sides, it wouldn’t have felt so bad. If we hadn’t had to sit in seventh place for eight weeks while the elites ran around, it wouldn’t have felt so bad. If we hadn’t been in the grip of one of the wettest, most miserable winters I can remember, it wouldn’t have felt so bad.

But we recovered. Five good wins in a row. Home and away wins against Sarries, Leicester and Newcastle. Play-offs again. Sitting here, now that summer seems to have finally got its arse into gear, I can look back and see that it was actually a pretty good season, if maybe not quite as good as we’d hoped.

Now, I can look forward and think, “Do that again but this time with a bit more ruthlessness in the wins and without the silly defeats”. But that’s for the preview…

I’d like to thank my…

It’s plaudits time. I’m going to concentrate on the less well-established names: you all know who the big boys are and I don’t really need to single them out but I do want to recognise those who’ve put down markers for the future.

• Asher Opoku-Fordjour. What a season he’s had. Only played thirteen games (twelve from the bench) but he’s held his own against the Irish front row and been praised by Joe Marler on air.
• James Harper. Seemed to be playing beneath his potential early on but has stepped up following the injury to Sharkey and, like Asher, has held his own against much more experienced opposition. I know he’s been around for a while, but this feels like a breakout season for him.
• … as it does for Sam Dugdale. Taking on the mantle in the absence of the Currys, he’s continued to be seen as a starter even with the return of Ben and collecting a couple of Player of the Match awards into the bargain.
• Ben Bamber shows a lot of promise. He started in all the European games and was a substitute in twelve Premiership matches. He’ll get better.
• Alex Wills has played three games, twice from the bench. His one start – against the Stormers – indicated that we have yet another young winger with lots of promise. If Arron gets a Scotland cap, EQP rules might see Wills overtaking him.
• And I’m going to throw Hyron Andrews in here, too. An established player in South Africa, he came here to cover for the injury to Jonny Hill and has made a significant impact, to the extent that we’d really rather like to keep him.

And now, the end is near…

And finally, heartfelt thanks and best wishes to the guys leaving us.

• Cam Neild. Came back as emergency cover for the end of the season. I was sorry to see him go the first time and I’m sorry to see him go this time as well.
• Finn Rogers. To be honest, I don’t know much about him other than that he’s come through the academy.
• Cal Ford and Ewan Murphy. They never properly broke into the first team but showed talent. Someone will be the better for picking them up.
• Telusa Veainu. Brought in on a short-term contract as backline cover. Only played nine times but we thank him for his effort.
• Tom Ellis. I thought he was going to hang around longer, but his tenure here has been blighted by injury. I don’t know why he’s leaving but wish him all the best wherever he goes.
• Gus Creevy. Picked up on a one-year contract following the demise of London Irish. A legend of the game and a definite fan favourite. Will still be playing when he’s 105.
• Cobus Wiese. What can I say? Immense. The bedrock of the scrum, huge boots for someone to fill.
• Manu Tuilagi. Imagine a bludgeon with a smiley face painted on it. That’s Manu. We didn’t see nearly enough of him in his time here. I’ll miss that perpetually smiling face.
• Sam James. There are no words. If he does sign for Racing, I think a weekend in Paris is in order when Bayonne come to visit.

So, that’s it. Another season done and dusted. On the whole, I think it was moderately successful. Less so than hoped but I still see it as a positive in the story of Sale Sharks consistently being a force to be reckoned with.

See you in September.

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1. For certain values of ‘fun’ ↩︎