Season Summary 2010-2011

By Whaley Shark
June 5 2011

I’m really playing for time now, counting down to next season’s action, like a Test batsman hunkering down to save a match by playing a two day innings. So I thought I’d spend a bit of time looking back at our last Premiership season on the field.

The campaign began with Falcons at home, a comfortable win with a couple of tries, and a sound performance at 10 from Nick Macleod, playing in place of the recuperating Charlie Hodgson. Given the way they ended the season, playing Saracens away early on was good but, even so, we competed only for the first half of the game, fading away in the second half and conceding a couple of tries in going down by 15 points. Returning to Edgeley Park, we were caught cold by Quins, who established a 17-6 half time lead before being blown away in a two-try, 15-point comeback to give us a four point win. We repeated the slow start away at Bath, but this time there was to be no comeback, and we were on the receiving end of a 4-try defeat. The next week, at home to Wasps, we finally seemed to be getting a grip on the slow starts and, on a filthy night, managed to turn round at 12-all. However, after pulling ahead with a couple of Charlie penalties, we leaked the only try of the game to bring Wasps back into it and they finally sneaked the win with a late drop goal. That brought a break in the Premiership for the first European action of the season.

We resumed after a couple of weeks with an effective if unexciting 6-3 win away at Leeds, memorable only for Leeds’ ability to run the ball for phase after phase and make precisely no ground at all. The following week, down at the Madejski, we found ourselves 26-6 behind to Irish with just about half an hour to go, before scoring 20 points in 11 minutes, then slipping behind to a couple of penalties and finally having even a losing bonus point snatched away by a late, late interception try.

After another break, this time for LV-Cup action, Saints came up to Stockport in mid-November, established superiority up front, outscored us two tries to one, and left with the four points. The last Premiership match before Christmas took us all the way down to a frozen Exeter, where the Premiership new boys were proving they were nobody’s fools and, sure enough, they always had the edge in a win where our setpieces misfired again and we were grateful to come back up north with a losing bonus point.

Santa then took us to Leicester as a gift wrapped, five point Christmas present for the Tigers, who stormed into an early lead, picked up the bonus point by half time and, with an hour gone, were 42-7 up. We restored some pride though, picking a couple of late tries as Tigers eased off a bit and we decided to chuck the ball about. For me, the next game, Saracens at home just after New Year, was one of the season’s best performances. With Charlie perhaps proving a point to his new employers, we scored three first half tries to turn around 28-9 ahead and, although Sarries fought back in the second half, we held on comfortably for a good win. Away at a soggy Kingston Park, a tight, forward-dominated game ended in a muddy draw, and then it was a month of other things before settling into a run of the AP season’s last ten games during February.

And that started as a pretty dismal run with four losses in a row. Bath, playing a safe game, beat us comfortably in the Stockport rain, while a slow Sale start in the Stoop mudbath saw Quins too far ahead for us to get back into contention. An improved, but still losing performance against Tigers at Edgeley Park saw us pick up a bonus point. Poor discipline down at Wasps saw us 15-0 down at half time but, while things improved, winning the second half 26-18 was only enough to give us another losing bonus. The losing run was broken with the visit of Leeds to Edgelely Park, where we got away with a narrow win, five penalties being enough to beat two-try Leeds thanks to some iffy Adrian Jarvis kicking. That was enough to all but secure our Premiership place for another year. After Saints clocked up four tries before half time, we hauled ourselves back into the game in the spring sunshine at Northampton, then it all went horribly wrong with Neil Briggs’s second yellow card and, playing for over 30 minutes with 14 men, we ended up on the wrong end of an eight try, 53-24 thumping. Back in Stockport, Gloucester seemed to be well in control when Paul Williams got the first of his two tries just before half time then, in the second half, we scored three tries in ten minutes to seal a bonus point win. ‘Rugby at the Reebok’ mainly involved London Irish, who collected five points as an error-strewn Sharks performance meant that we were never really in the match. The errors continued at the following weekend’s last home game of the season, where Exeter led for almost the whole game and only a last gasp Will Addison try, converted by Charlie, gave us a losing bonus. That just left an away trip to play-off chasing Gloucester, where a Sale side with nothing to play for and many members playing their last game for the club, went down badly in a ten try defeat.

I am not sure it’s worth trying too hard to see any bigger picture in all this. We had a mid-season drama with Mike Brewer’s departure and Dimes’s arrival. I think they have the same diagnosis of Sale’s problems and, indeed, are prescribing rather similar medicine. So we’ll have a largely new squad (again!) next season and one rather hopes that past performance will not be too close a guide to the future. In particular, we struggled with discipline, and at various times in both scrum and lineout (occasionally both together). Our defence, which seemed pretty robust at the beginning of the season, seemed to develop some pretty significant cracks later on. We also, often, played only in fits and starts, and it never seems sensible to give the opposition a hefty start. That said, there were some good moments too, notably the wins against Sarries and Gloucester, and it’s good to see some young, home-grown talent emerging. That’s it for the time being, folks!