Sale v Wasps Preview
By Whaley Shark
October 4 2014
Well it’s been a bit of a funny season so far, so I thought it was worth looking at our four results and trying to understand where we sit in the AP pecking order.
While we were competitive against Bath in our season opener, that game ultimately got away from us. However, Bath have now clearly emerged as one of the front runners, blowing away London Welsh at the Rec and an admittedly depleted Tigers at Welford Road, picking up a losing bonus away at Saints and, last night winning well against Saracens.
Gloucester seem to be misfiring a bit so far this season, battered by Saints away, losing narrowly at home to Exeter and hammering Welsh away, so maybe our losing bonus at Kingsholm, in a game we lost from a winning position, is a bit disappointing.
Welsh are starting to look like everyone’s guaranteed ten points, conceding 40-50 points in each of their four matches so far this season. Fortunately, we collected the first five of ours from them a couple of weeks back.
Last weekend, Saracens, table toppers until last night’s loss in Bath, with good wins away at Quins and Irish under their belts, showed that they were clearly too good for us at Allianz Park and we were never in that game.
And so to tomorrow’s opponents, Wasps. They’ve done OK so far with a narrow loss to Saracens, a home win against Saints, a losing bonus against Quins and a decent win against Falcons. I think their form is a bit better than ours, but whether that’s enough to negate our home advantage, I don’t know. I am going for a Sale win, but I see us sneaking home by three or four points in the usual Sale Sharks nailbiting style.
Looking ahead to the rest of the season, I have a feeling we are emerging as a lower mid-table side, heading for an 8th or 9th place finish. I’d have been more optimistic if we’d come back from Kingsholm with four points, but I think that just says we’ll find it hard competing against the mid-table pack. While injuries to key players could lead to us struggling, Welsh’s early emergence as bottom dogs ought to see us safe, if perhaps in a rather undignified fashion.