Sale Sharks 21 London Wasps 20

By Whaley Shark
May 5 2013

…and so we reach the last round of the season, in better shape than seemed possible just a couple of months ago. Wasps are the visitors, on a Spring-like Saturday afternoon, and there isn’t a pizza in sight.   

 

Just to prove that the Sale Sharks of Spring 2013 is a very different kettle of fish from the pre-Christmas variety, we seem to have given up allowing the opposition a 10-20 point start, and we took the game to Wasps from the kick-off. The early exchanges were pretty even until Wasps missed touch with a penalty, Mark Cueto banged the ball back, Wasps overthrew the lineout and Henry Thomas charged forward, being stopped just 5 metres out. Some neat interpassing confused the defence and Tom Brady crossed, unopposed, on the left for an unconverted try.

The game rather swung to-and-fro for the next ten minutes or so but then a midfield scrum allowed Wasps to show just how sharp their attacking skills were. From a free kick at a midfield scrum, they made 20 metres, we infringed at a ruck, and they set Christian Wade loose with a tap penalty. Fast and elusive, he cantered over and, with the conversion, Wasps had a 7-5 lead after 20 minutes.

Wasps misjudged our restart though, and let the ball bounce into touch just a few metres from their line. They couldn’t clear the ball and, under pressure from our forwards, the ball came loose over their try line. Dan Braid dived amongst the defenders’ feet to touch down and put us back ahead 12-5. An extended period of Sale pressure throughout the rest of the half gave us no further return, though. One Macleod penalty came back off the post, while we opted to run, or kick for the corner, with several others, but failed to exploit any opportunities.

We resumed in much the same way after the break, exerting huge pressure on the Wasps line for 15 minutes through a series of scrums and penalty kicks to the corner but we couldn’t find a way over, and eventually Nick Macleod settled for ‘taking the three’.

We took the restart kick well, cleared downfield but Hugo Southwell, the Wasps fullback, ran back at us, broke our line and set that man Wade loose in open space. Twisting and turning at speed, he evaded the cover defence to score his second try of the afternoon and suddenly, at 15-14, it was another of those ‘one point games’. Wasps seemed to find a new lease of life and the lead changed hands four times in the last quarter as neither side was able to establish superiority and the kickers kept slotting penalties. Wasps had a chance to win it at the death with a mighty penalty attempt from well inside their half, but it fell short and we were able to close the game out.

Positives- well, quite a few. The scrum and lineout went OK, we had a good rolling maul, mostly bottled up the Wasps’ fast wingers, and found a way to exert considerable pressure on the opposition. The obvious negative was our inability to convert all that territory, possession and pressure into points. However, we looked like a team and did enough to nick tenth place in the table which, back at New Year, I wouldn’t have believed possible.

So thank you to all the players, whether you’re staying or moving on. We do have something to build on next season and I’m quite looking forward to seeing what develops over the summer. In the meantime, I’ll keep the board ticking over with random gibberish, but please feel free to provide material for front page stories. Have a good summer, all!