Sale Sharks 25 Harlequins 37
By Whaley Shark
October 22 2011
So we’ve put the AP on ice for a couple of weeks and taken up the LV Cup instead. In spite of an away loss to Gloucester, we’re still in contention thanks to its weird structure but, realistically, we do need to win at home to Quins tonight.
The first ten minutes really set the tone for the whole match. We showed a fair bit of ambition and a willingness to chuck the ball around, we had a penalty opportunity which went wide, we knocked on and from the resulting scrum and a defensive error, Quins’ winger Seb Stegmann scored a rather soft try. We then had probably our best sustained period of the game, launching a series of attacks through a couple of penalties kicked to touch and, at one stage, camping on the Quins’ line. However, a Cueto knock-on with the line at his mercy was the end of all that, and we came away empty handed.
The flow of the game was disrupted by an injury to Quins’ centre Tom Casson, who was stretchered off after two heavy collisions in a couple of minutes. He turned out to be OK though, which is a great relief. We resumed with a lively passage of play but overdid it a bit and lost another soft try to a Tom Williams interception. Nick Macleod got us off the mark a couple of minutes later but, at 3-14 down with half an hour gone, this was going to have to be another of our Houdini acts. And just for a few minutes, it looked like it might be. A quickly taken penalty and some excellent work from Rob Miller set Will Addison up for a good try. Then, we finally got it all together. We took the Quins restart well, ran the ball to half way, won a penalty, put it into touch, won the lineout, rolled the last few metres and Alasdair Dickinson battered over from close range. Textbook stuff. Nick Macleod missed the difficult conversion, but we went in for half time 15-14 up. Comeback well and truly on.
Or perhaps not. Quins launched a couple of strong attacks from the restart, which culminated in Stegmann’s second try of the evening. A good break by Burrell set up a successful penalty to keep us in touch, but Quins increasingly dominated. They knocked on a couple of metres short with a two man overlap, then kicked a penalty. With nearly an hour gone, the game looked like it was just starting to get away from us. We pulled it back though, running a penalty right and setting up a Johnny Leota try with some strong running from Mark Cueto. With the conversion, we were back in the lead, but only by one point.
The next ten minutes were even, notable mainly for strong Sale defence on the half way line, but the stalemate was broken by two further Quins penalties and finally the killer blow, Stegmann’s hat trick try as some porous defending failed to stop an attack which originated from a scrum on half way. We finished strongly, trying to scrape a losing bonus, but it wasn’t to be and our last attack finished with Wame Lewaravu being bundled into touch.
So, it was all a bit like a Spaghetti Western in my view.
The good- a more robust scrum than in the last few weeks; the lineout seemed to go well too.
The bad- We seemed to have difficulty handling, with too many knock ons and loose passes for comfort. We’re also not too clever at restarts
The ugly- we may have gained a scrum, but we have lost something in defence. Maybe that was inevitable as World Cup returners came into the side, but we basically gave Quins two soft tries through defensive errors, not really what we want with Tigers visiting us next week.
My Man of the Match- Vadim Cobilas, because I’ve felt over the last few weeks that he does a prop’s primary job well, and contributed a great deal to our improved scrummaging.
And finally, if you are the plonker in the big, new, shiny BMW X whatever who walloped my left elbow with your wing mirror in the car park, two pieces of advice- buy a car you can see out of and are competent to drive; and, if you do clout a pedestrian, saying ‘Sorry’ is more likely to prevent consequences than looking at me like I am something you have found on the sole of your shoe. Prat!