Sale Sharks 25 Wasps 14

By Whaley Shark
October 6 2014

The trouble with playing on a Sunday is that I have to do this dull work thing on a Monday, so this report is a bit slower than I’d have hoped.

But the long and the short of it is that we ended up with a decent win against Wasps. It was very Sale though, the first half very much in the balance until just before half time, building a decent lead by 50 minutes, then sweating until almost the end when we finally put the game to bed.

Tom Arscott was key to the first try, initially breaking deep into Wasps territory then, a few minutes later, finishing off some slick handling after several phases in the Wasps 22 to cross in the left corner. Wasps gave us a hard time for much of the next 20 minutes, with some pretty direct running, and capitalising on a couple of our mistakes- an overthrown lineout, a couple of turnovers. In one of our more desperate moments, Michael Paterson was shown yellow and, a couple of minutes later, Wasps made the extra man count and, with a successful conversion, took the lead, 5-7.

They tried hard to press home their advantage, building pressure again on our 22 before some Waspy naughtiness gave us a penalty and let us relieve the pressure with a long kick downfield to give s a lineout on the Wasps 22. Luke Maclean broke into the Wasps 22 but Marc Jones was tackled into touch just a couple of metres out. Wasps won the defensive lineout but their clearance was charged down, the defenders failed to touch down cleanly and Chris Cusiter took advantage. With the conversion, our 5 point lead was restored just a couple of minutes before half time.

Danny, whose kicking had been a bit iffy so far, opened the second half scoring with a drop goal from our first attack of the half to take us more than a converted try ahead, then opened the gap a bit more, kicking a penalty from the Wasps 22 after a scrum infringement.

We seemed to ease off just a bit after this and Wasps had several dangerous looking attacks, but weren’t able to make any count as they were snuffed out by Wasps errors and infringements, or by our effective use of the choke tackle. Eventually, though, our defences cracked and a Wasps penalty into the corner set up Christian Wade to junk and wriggle his way over. With the conversion, our cushion was looking rather thin as the game went into the last ten minutes and Wasps continued to press.

However, we exploited some broken play chopping over the Wasps defence in midfield. Tom Arscott put the defender under extreme pressure, forcing him to step into touch a few metres out. Tom Arscott then took the lineout quickly and we spun the ball across the pitch for Tom Brady to cross on the right. The TMO made us suffer but eventually awarded the try and, at 25-14, we were able to see out the last couple of minutes fairly comfortably.

So I was wrong in my prediction the other day and it was a fairly comfortable win, at least if you go by the scoreline. It didn’t feel that comfortable at the AJB though, so congratulations to the team on a good defensive performance. We do still seem to have scrum and lineout problems, but the backs have quite a cutting edge at the moment. It was an important win too, putting us firmly in the AP’s mid-table pack, rather than down among the tail-end Charlies. With the trivial matter of Saints away before European games against Munster and Clermont, a bit of a cushion and a bit of confidence won’t go amiss.