Well, that was a welcome response to the disappointment of last week’s game.
To be fair, the four-twenty-twelve players didn’t seem particularly up for it. Certainly, in the second half, there was a lethargy about them that suggested that they weren’t enjoying a cold, wet night in Salford. Can’t think why…
As part of my now-traditional series of moans at EPCR — who, I am now convinced, do not give a monkey’s about the paying punter in the stands — can we talk about match clocks for a minute?
I get that they have sponsored timekeeping and all that, so the clocks need to be visible to the TV cameras (although does anyone watching on TV look at those clocks? After all, they have a permanent clock on-screen, anyway). Why, though, does that mean that the clocks are only on the side facing the cameras? Any spectators in that stand have no visible clock. Add to that, the clocks are at each end of the relevant stand, so spectators in the end stands can’t see a clock because there’s a bloody great TV camera in the way.
Is it because the money we spend doesn’t go into EPCR’s coffers? Why should they worry if the mugs who pay to stand at the edge of a field on a cold winter’s night can’t see a bloody clock, or have to fork out on a trip to South Africa, or get a trip to Glasgow rather than Paris? They’re not losing out.
And breathe…
Right, the game…
The first fifteen minutes (maybe, can’t be sure – I couldn’t see a clock…) were pretty cagey— OK, boring. All midfield stuff as two apparently well-matched teams neutralised each other. Sale kept trying to gift the game to Racing by giving them penalties which they kicked to the corners, only for Sale’s defence to shut them out. And that defensive work scored a moral victory when, at some point in the proceedings, after three or four failed line-out attacks, Le Garrec chose to kick for the posts after the inevitable penalty from Sale. That he missed a relatively easy kick was a source of some amusement in the crowd. A couple of French supporters had to have the chant “How wide do you want the posts?” explained to them. They thought it was funny…
During all this mucking about, James Harper took a blow to the head and had to go off for an HIA, so we got the welcome return, about forty minutes earlier than expected, of WillGriff John. It was obvious to anyone watching that James wasn’t going to pass his HIA, so WGJ would have to put in a seventy-odd-minute shift on his first game back (and 100th overall, to boot). A daunting task, but this is WillGriff we’re talking about: of course he coped admirably.
Then, on eighteen minutes (I know that, because there’s a timeline in the Premiership app), the flow of the game had turned towards Sale and J-L grabbed the ball at the base of a ruck about a metre out and hurled his considerable bulk over for the first score. Rob missed the conversion, but we were now off and running.
Tom Roebuck was proving to be a right pain in the cul to the Racing back three: the new laws around the kick-chase have certainly worked in his favour and he was knocking high balls back all night. He got his reward half an hour in with a try in the corner after a lovely move involving Rob to George to Carps who drew the defence before shipping on. Typically, this time Rob kicked the much more difficult conversion. Twelve-nil up and looking good for it.
Just before half-time, Racing were back, poking around our try line, when Gogichasvili grounded by the posts. Twelve-seven at the end of a, frankly, quite dull half. Yes, there were tries, and some flashes of what was to come but, overall, it was, as I said earlier, two teams neutralising each other.
Similarly to the Leicester game, Sale started the second half with much more enthusiasm and flair. Racing, by contrast, looked as if they would have rather been anywhere else: despite being only five points adrift, they looked to have given up.
Remember that guy, Roebuck, who was royally pisannoying the French back three? Well, he managed to get himself permanently removed from their Christmas card list about ten minutes into the half. They had realised that trying to run through Sale’s defence was a losing proposition, so had resorted to going aerial. Gibert attempted a long cross-field kick to his winger but Roebuck grabbed it out of the air and ran down the touchline, hotly pursued by a couple of Racing backs and Joe Carpenter. All it took was a simple inside pass and Carps was in under the posts.
Find the clip online and watch it. Then watch it again. And again…
Ten minutes after that, Sale were pressing the Racing try line again. We thought they’d scored but the ref said no. He did award Sale a penalty and bin the Racing 7, though, for… reasons (didn’t I say? No RefLink, either). From the resulting line-out, Ben Curry eventually got bundled over the line for the bonus-point try.
And that was about all the notable action until the last minute when we all thought that Rob had scored a bit of a wonder try by weaving through the defence following a sharp counter-attack. Unfortunately, the ref chose this as the one time in the match that he checked the replay and deemed Ben Bamber to have knocked on the build-up.
Game over, five points, bring on the Stormers…
I’m not sure how much we can glean from that performance. Everyone played well — some superbly — but Racing didn’t get out of second gear, so it’s hard to say how Sale would measure up against a fully firing team. Ben Curry continues to demonstrate that Borthwick is insane for not playing him more often (especially given Dombrandt’s presence in the team), Roebuck had a blinder, and big kudos to WillGriff for being WillGriff…
That leaves us fourth in the table, behind Quins on points difference, and two and three points behind Glasgow and Toulon, respectively. Stormers are at the bottom of the pile with no points from their two games. How will that affect their approach to our visit in January? Will they go all out for pride? Or will they cut their losses and concentrate on the URC? It should be spicy and, if we can snatch a win, will set up a potentially classic encounter with Toulon in Salford the week after. Can’t wait…
Before then, though, we have the small matter of the Premiership to look forward to over the next three weeks. First up is Exeter at home. They are having a torrid time of it at the moment, seemingly set on emulating Newcastle of last season. We should — we need — to win this comfortably. we have to start making up ground on the teams above us and we need to do it with bonus point wins. I’m on record as saying that one win is better than four bonus points but there are teams with five or six bonus points more than us.
For what it’s worth, given Exeter’s parlous state, SAMP™ predicts a narrow-ish win by four or five points with a score in the twenties. We need to do better than that.
If Horse really has brought back the duck’s-arse Sale defence of old, then, if they can show the kind of play they brought out in the second half against Leicester, I think we can get some serious pointage out of the next three games. Yes, I know that two of them are Bristol and Gloucester away but they are beatable: Bristol have been beaten twice (once at home) and Gloucester are one point ahead of us having won fewer games.
We just need to get the away game monkey off our backs…
an old grey dog 