Sale Sharks 23 Gloucester 6

By Whaley Shark
March 29 2015

It’s so long since we’ve played at home, I’d almost forgotten my little rituals: notepad- yes, pen- yes, half time cake- yes. OK Good to go then…….

It seemed a bit as if the players, too, were slightly unfamiliar with what was going on. We started fairly slowly, giving Gloucester two penalty chances in the first 15 minutes. They missed one and got one, to take a lead. We then built our first real attack thanks to a Gloucester knock-on in their own half. A neat grubber kick and some good Sale pressure left the defender with no choice other than to take the ball into touch. The lineout set us up to batter the Gloucester line and, at the third attempt, Jonny Leota was driven over for a try.

A Mike Haley clearance that went straight out gave Gloucester a decent platform and, though the chance appeared to have gone when they knocked on a few metres out, we gave them a penalty at the resulting scrum and James Hook made no mistake. It was Gloucester’s turn to mess up a touch kick a few minutes later, with the clock running down to half time, giving us a pretty non-threatening lineout on half way. A neat narrow side move took us well into the Gloucester 22, we knocked on but won a penalty at the resulting scrum. Danny slotted it, and we turned around 10-6 ahead.

We then shut Gloucester out in the second half with an impressive defensive display, picking up a couple of penalties then, as the hour came, a penetrating break from Tom Arscott set us up in the Gloucester 22 and Josh Beaumont found a gap to score a fine try. The conversion took the scoreline to 23-6 and concluded the afternoon’s scoring but, Sale being Sale, it didn’t conclude the afternoon’s drama.

With a bit under 15 minutes to go, Nathan Hines was binned and Gloucester really turned the screw. We held out, thanks to some pretty heroic defence until, with just a few minutes left, Danny was also binned, fortunately at the time Nathan Hines returned. Gloucester continued to batter away, unsuccessfully, Eventually, a grubber went slightly astray to give us a lineout, and we were able to stick the ball into touch to seal the win.

I thought it was a good win. The weather in the first half probably didn’t help, but we had a solid, organised defence, and took our opportunities well. That’s one of Dimes’s Cup Finals out of the way, and four more to go. Keep it going, lads……