Ask, and ye shall receive…
Last week, I said, “They are currently on a points difference of -45: let’s see if we can make that significantly bigger.”
“Double it and add seven” works for me.
What’s the opposite of “squeaky bum time”? ‘Cos that’s what we had here. Maybe not exactly the opposite, but the analogue of “we could do with a bigger lead” might be “we should be much further ahead than this”. Because, let’s face it, the Falcons were abject. They looked beaten before the game even started.
It may seem churlish to say it, but with ten minutes to go, we should have been further ahead. We had won the first half 31-0, but so far, the second half score was only 7-5. OK, 38-5 was still better than Sarries or Exeter had managed, but you still felt that we’d done that typical Sale thing of going walkabout for twenty minutes. Off the boil, AWOL, away with the fairies – whatever you want to call it – we have this habit of coming off the gas for an extended period, usually in the second half. Against better sides than Newcastle, that can (and has) cost us dearly.
Axe, in his post-match interview, said that Fordy had a word about the loss of focus ten minutes from the end. That’s when we turned the afterburners back on and scored three tries in eight minutes. Thanks, George, but can you have that chat fifteen minutes earlier next time?
But, having mentioned it, let’s leave the nitpicking aside and concentrate on the other sixty minutes. As demolition jobs go, this was pretty effective and quite ruthless. When Rob scored after eight minutes, we’d already buggered up a couple of chances.
Three minutes later, Buck exposed the flaws in Newcastle’s defence as he cut back inside through a gap the size of a battleship.
Then, three minutes after that, Max Clark got binned as the Falcons repeatedly infringed. Sale took a tap penalty in front of the posts, and Dickie barrelled over through a lacklustre defensive effort.
Three tries up with barely fifteen minutes gone. This was looking like a cricket score in the offing.
But it took another fifteen or so minutes before Ernie celebrated his fiftieth league appearance with a try of his own and secured the bonus point as well.
Five minutes before the break, Dickie was sent to the bin for… I’m not quite sure what, exactly. He went for the ball after a tackle and was deemed to be offside (?). It looked OK to me, but I’m not a referee, so what do I know? Anyway, it didn’t make any difference as, on the stroke of half-time, Rob put a lovely grubber in behind the defence, and Arron showed some footballing skills to kick the ball on into the Newcastle in-goal and drop on it for try number five.
At this point, I was almost feeling sorry for Newcastle, but then I thought of Dimes’s sad little face and the feeling went away.
And then we come to the second half…
How on Earth did four defenders completely fail to stop Obatoyinbo? It seemed incredible at the time, and it wasn’t made any more credible watching the replay. Well done to the lad for scoring, but, blyddi Nora, that was some poor defending.
With that score, Gus gave way to Raffi for the first time this season. I’m not going to get too excited – Raffi’s had more comebacks than Joe Marler – I just hope he has an extended injury-free run this time.
Five minutes later, Roebuck waltzed through another gaping hole in the Newcastle defence to restore (and extend) the lead.
Then we had a fallow period where we seemed to lose momentum somewhat. Not that we slowed down, particularly: Raffi was fizzing balls from the ruck, but we looked a bit aimless; the get-up-and-go had got up and gone. The Falcons had a bit of a purple patch during this period, but, honestly, the only way they were going to score was courtesy of a defensive brain fart, and they weren’t getting another one of those.
Then George had a word, and they got back into gear. Jibs peeled off the back of a maul for number seven, Arron finished off a delightful move for number eight, and Buck finished things off with number nine for his hat-trick and new pair of Reeboks.
You can’t draw conclusions from weak opposition. You can only play what’s in front of you. Blah, blah, blah. Exeter beat them by twenty-three points at home. That’s the Exeter who took Saints to a draw at Franklin’s Gardens. Saracens – much vaunted, ‘going to be major contenders this year’ Saracens – beat them by twenty-two points. Maybe you can’t draw conclusions from that game, but you can compare yourself with other teams against the same opposition.
Yes, we went to sleep, but the fact that we can drift for a quarter of the game and still put together a thumping win has to count for something. Yes, going to sleep like that against stronger opposition could be fatal, but I think the team knows that, and I suspect they’ll be working on it even now.
But what I really want to take away from this game is that the change in approach seems to be holding. There were many sublime moves scattered through the match, many of them involving Rob du Preez. Watch for his involvement in so many of the moves: from being in the right place to receive the ball from Gus, to a perfect kick-through for Reedy’s first, and a delightful back-of-the-hand to Jibs, leading to Reedy’s second. Add in quick tip-ons, delayed passes and all the tricks of the fly-half’s trade, but executed from the thirteen channel. We’re losing a good ‘un, so we’d better make the most of him this season. Can we get him past ninety consecutive starts? What a legacy to leave with, especially if it could be combined with a champion’s medal.
Legend.
Ben Bamber got the player of the match award, and it was well-deserved, too. Ben is certainly growing into the game, and I think we’re seeing a continuation of something that’s happening across this team: show faith in the young players, give them some responsibility, and they’ll reward you. It happened with Asher, it happened with Rikki, it’s happening with Bamber and Jibs, and I think we may start to see Woodman being pushed forward, too. Maybe later in the season, but it’ll happen. I get the distinct impression that all of these young lads have their progression mapped out over several seasons, and, if so, kudos to the coaches who are bringing on the talent when needed.
Jibs continues to be a monster. So what if his darts went a bit awry this time? He’s young, he’ll get better with practice. But the other stuff he brings: that’s gold dust. Three tries in three games tells its own story.
<Insert pæan to George Ford here>
And so we move on to an away trip to Sarries. Not traditionally a happy hunting ground, but we do know that it’s possible to win there. Add in that a couple of recent defeats there have been of our own making, and there’s reason to believe that we can come away with a couple of points, or – who knows? – a win? They didn’t look terribly effective against Quins this weekend, so there are vulnerabilities to exploit, if we can manage it.
Form suggests the spoils will go to Saracens, but let’s keep the faith and see what the new regime can do against an old enemy…
an old grey dog 