View from the armchair: Newcastle Falcons 19 Sale Sharks 17

Dan Mugford
By Cap'n Major Bloodnok
September 6 2016

Last game of last season, first game of this: Newcastle away. Yes, we'd got the win there back in the mists of time, but much had changed (for both teams) over the summer. Hopes ran high for the travelling faithful, but how would a substantially new team fare at a ground where we rarely do well?

This isn't going to be a match report since I wasn't there and I haven't yet watched the replay (if, indeed, I bother with it), so this is more in the nature of a couple of observations based on following the match on Twitter and comments made by others afterwards.

First off, I'm not particularly downhearted by the defeat. We've only won a couple of times up there in all the years we've both been in the Premiership, so I wasn't really expecting the win. That it was that close was a bit of a bonus (point).

I've seen a lot of doom-and-gloom being bandied about to the effect that the season's over, forget top six, the off-season excitement was misplaced, and so on. Ludicrous hyperbole, of course. Last year we drew with an inferior Newcastle team at home and suffered several early defeats (Sarries, anyone?).

Outscoring the other team in tries is always encouraging, but it seems we still suffer the age-old problem of giving away too many kickable penalties.

McGinty was apparently off his game, but Mugford proved an able backup. We missed Cameron Neild in the back row (injured?), which seemed unbalanced and possibly contributed to the overall poor performance (first half especially).

So, a two-point defeat when playing badly, scoring more tries, a back-up coming good when needed: I see no need for panic yet.

The only real buggeration is Rob Webber's broken arm. Why do Sale always seem to have a key player crocked either prior to or early on in the season?