How do you go from couldn’t-find-your-arse-with-both-hands-and-a-GPS one week to slick, well-oiled demolition merchants the next?
I suppose the answer lies somewhere between the return of Bev, Fordy, Carps and Rikki, and going from playing against well-oiled demolition merchants one week to even more inept arse-location operatives the next.
I can only describe the first half as a right old bowl of petunias1.
We didn’t make the greatest of starts by gifting them seven points within two minutes with a brain fart of volcanic proportions. An attempted quick, long throw-in went spectacularly wrong as it evaded JV’s grasp and dropped straight into Marcus Smith’s hands, right next to the posts. What made it more galling was that the throw came about from a great bit of defending, with Tom Curry bundling Isgro into touch a couple of metres from the line.
The irony of that was that, had Isgro scored, the conversion would have been more difficult, and we might have only been five points down.
It would be another forty minutes before Quins did anything else of note, other than kicking a penalty (a moral victory for Sale, since they seemed to have given up thoughts of scoring from a lineout). Even then, we still kind of gifted them the opportunity.
Meanwhile, the Momentary Lapse of Reason seemed to have woken Sale up a bit, and, five minutes later, Alex Wills pulled five points back. Ten minutes after that, Dickie did the honours on a walkover maul.
It was becoming increasingly apparent that Quins weren’t at the races in any department, summed up for me by Cunningham-South getting monstered by Raffi after picking up from the base of a scrum. (That was the second-best Raffi moment of the match.) Despite that, though, we couldn’t make any more inroads and, as half-time approached, it looked as if we were going to take a two-point lead into the break.
But, but, but… We just can’t go for an extended period without doing something silly, can we? Clock in the red, Quins ruck about six metres out from our line, not looking particularly threatening, Bev goes for an ill-advised jackal. Penalty; line-out; maul; score. Instead of a two-point lead, we’re going in with a five-point deficit.
Oh, no, not again…
But then the second half happened.
If the bulk of the first half was a frustrating struggle against a poor team, then the second half was an almost celebratory procession against a poor team.
Within five minutes of the restart, JV had scored his first try for Sale (watch Ernie’s contribution: the way he draws the defender to open the hole that Jacques ran through). About ten minutes later, he got his second after Dickie was tackled just short of the line (poor defence, there).
Five minutes later, we got a glorious move, started by Rikki, taken on by Jibs and finished by Rikki. Sublime.
But not quite as sublime (or satisfying) as the best Raffi moment a few minutes later. Isgro cleared the ball from his own twenty-two into Sale’s half, where Raffi (currently playing on the wing) fielded it. He then hoofed the ball into a big open space in the opposite corner, where Marcus Smith – now at full back – trotted after it, waiting, presumably, for it to roll over the line for a simple touch down. The ball, however, wasn’t playing ball, and Smith fumbled trying to gather it, propelling it into the in-goal area. His attempt to regather simply pushed the ball a bit further on, where an incoming Quirkocet missile landed in it for the half’s fourth try and Sale’s sixth.
I will never get tired of rewatching that…
Jibs finished off the scoring a couple of minutes later with a regulation hooker’s try from a driving maul.
Mind you, we tried our best in the closing minutes to give Quins some hope. Three penalties that they kicked for line outs in our twenty-two, three line outs that they right royally buggered up.
It wasn’t a good day to be a Quins supporter.
Or player, come to that.
So, does this mark the start of Sale’s now-traditional post-Christmas surge up the table?
It would be nice to think so, but I think caution is needed. This game was another example of the new, Joe Ford-inspired style of play and shows that we are capable of putting together slick moves and are not just boshers. However, we have yet to prove that we can achieve that level of control and accuracy against good defences. Last week, we couldn’t hold on to the ball for more than a few phases. We looked like a scratch team against Northampton. Yes, we can put together the moves, but only (it seems) against weak defences like Quins.
We can be brilliant with front-foot ball, but now we have to make a better fist of using slow ball effectively.
I choose to see these last few games – Northampton, Exeter, Leicester, Bath (forget Sarries, that was a freak) – as the furnace in which we’re tempering the ‘backups’. The likes of Wills, Woodman, Onasanya, and so on. They all now have valuable experience that will stand them in good stead in the future. Look at Alex Wills: already looking like he’s making Roebuck earn his place back. These guys are getting the lessons that Asher and Rikki got over the last couple of seasons, and look where they are now.
You can buy squad depth, or you can build it. Right now, there’s a gap between the starters and the backups, and we suffer when the likes of Rodd or the Curries are injured or called up. But we have a very young squad; they have time to develop and be in top form for a long time to come. Bring in a few class players to boost that development, and the future looks good. But you can’t rush it.
Northampton are a year or two ahead of us in exactly that process, and look at what their ‘B’ team did to Bath at the Rec. (Which, incidentally, made me feel a little bit better about the previous week. Not much, but a bit.)
I think that is the thing that’s keeping us out of contention right now: that we have too many nailed-on starters and too few positions where you’re happy to see one of two or three players starting. I think there’s a strategy at the club to develop players, rather than buy everything you need. But that’s a long-term project: it takes time to build, but once it’s there, you’ve got a stable foundation for a long time. If you buy in loads of talent, then you’re good for a quick hit for a few years, but then it all drops away. Sarries know it, Saints are doing it, and so should we.
So, Bristol away next up, before a couple of European matches and then the revenge match against Saints at home.
We have a good record against Bristol, and they struggled against Newcastle before finally overcoming them. They’re flying high, but – if I remember correctly – they were last year as well: we still nilled them.
For those still interested, SAMP™ thinks that we’re going to win 25-16 or 27-16.
Keep the faith.
- If you don’t get the reference, then I’m afraid we can probably never be friends. ↩︎
an old grey dog 