Sale Sharks 19 Llanelli Scarlets 14

By Whaley Shark
February 6 2012

 On a bitterly cold day, with heavy snow forecast, and a nothing game in prospect thanks to last week’s stuffing at Falcons, I was struggling to understand why I should trek down to EP on Saturday, but I went anyway, and now I’ve thawed out this is what I thought. 

We started pretty brightly as well, in spite of some pretty awful conditions. Whether it was a statement of intent, or pragmatism with a strong breeze blowing in his face, I don’t know, but Nick Macleod put a couple of early penalties into touch and, from a lineout inside the Llanelli 22, the forwards got a good rumble on and bulldozed over for a try by Fourie after ten minutes. The Scarlets responded a few minutes later after some to-and-fro midfield rugby, when we gave them an easily kickable penalty, followed by a second ten minutes later, to make it 7-6. A messy passage of play after the restart let Llanelli come back at us again as we knocked on on our own 22 and Scarlets made good ground. As their pressure told, we were penalised at the breakdown, took it quickly and there were so many acres of space on the right that even a prop forward could score, which he did. The conversion rebounded off the post to give the Scarlets a 7-11 lead seven minutes before half time. Although we kept plugging away and set up a couple of decent positions, that was the last scoring of the half.

The first twenty minutes of the second half was mostly Sale and, although Nick Macleod sent one long range effort narrowly wide, he succeeded with three other penalties to put us back into the lead, 16-11. By this time, the flow of the game had been disrupted by substitutions and the evil conditions seemed to be getting the better of the players, with mistakes becoming more frequent. Llanelli missed a penalty, then got one over off the post, to put them right back in contention, before giving Nick Macleod a further opportunity and, with just five minutes to go, and 19-14 ahead, we began to think we were going to hold out. As the clock ran down, Charlie Amesbury slipped underneath a Scarlets’ bomb and some loose play gave the Scarlets an attacking scrum in the right corner. After a couple of resets, we nicked the ball and Cillian Willis gratefully hoofed it into touch.

Positives- a return to winning ways in a game which didn’t matter, and where we could easily have just not bothered. Some decent play in spite of the awful conditions, and some strong forward play, particularly from Fourie, Buckley and Ostrikov. Ostrikov would be my man of the match- I always like a grafter, and he’s certainly that. So roll on Worcester next Friday, in what I hope will be less vicious weather.