A Grand Day Out – Sale Sharks Stun Tigers

Bond - try scorer
By Jonathan Noad
October 5 2003

Every Sale fan wanted this result but few could have expected it after the dire performance against Bath a week before. Sale deserved this win and clearly wanted the victory from the start. The Sharks played a much slicker and quicker game than in the previous starts this season..

The scoring started in the fourth minute when Stu Pinkerton received a turnover ball and fed it to Steve Hanley on the left wing making some serious ground into the Leicester half. Hanley offloaded in the tackle to pass the ball to Graeme Bond who stepped round Stimpson to score. Braam van Straaten duly converted with his back to normal accurate boot. Listeria 0 Sale 7 - who would have thought it.

Sale continued to dominate possession with excellent work from captain Alex Sanderson who made former All Black Josh Kronfeld look ordinary. New Prop Andrew Sheridan was immense on numerous occasions dragging 2 or 3 Listeria players along the floor! Listeria continued to give a away penalties to stop Sale reaching the try line these were duly punished by van Straatens boot who kicked 3 penalties to Stimpsons 1 to send Sale in at half time 16-3 up.

In the second half Sale allowed Stimpson to get a further penalty closely followed by Kronfeld deliberately knocking the ball on allowing van Straaten to make amends for the Sharks. Kronfeld was also sent to the bin for his indiscipline. Listeria continued to exert pressure as the final whistle approached with sub Vesty scoring a try and Stimspon converting. Van Straaten and Stimspon exchanged further penalties.

Injury time came and was very nervy – I was thinking the Tigers are going to be really jammy here as they have been loads of times before. When Braam had two clearances charged down and failed to find touch my heart was pounding so much I thought it was going to come out of my chest. Sales awesome defence, however, weathered the tide. Finally the ref blew for full time – what a victory and you could clearly see what it meant to the players on the pitch.

After the game Leicester supporters reckoned they only lost because they had a lot of players missing but Sale have got equal number of first teamers out either on World Cup duty or long term injured. The fact is Sale played better than Leicester and wanted the victory more.

So Sales season starts here. Nine points from four isn’t bad considering and there is still a long way to go. This result will give the team some serious confidence ahead of the home fixture against last years champions Wasps. However I will leave the last word to Sir Jim who was really struggling not to show his pleasure at this win:

”This has got to be one of the club's most memorable performances”

Teams

Leicester Tigers

15 Stimpson; 14 Smith; 13 Lloyd; 12 Gibson; 11 Holtby; 10 Pez; 9 Healey; 8 W. Johnson; 7 Kronfeld; 6 B. Deacon; 5 L. Deacon; 4 Hamilton; 3 Nebbett; 2 Chuter; 1 Morris

16 Richards; 17 Holford; 18 Ryder; 19 H. Tuilagi; 20 Ellis; 21 Vesty; 22 Skinner

Scorers: Vesty (1T) Stimpson (1C, 3P)

Sale Sharks

15 Going; 14 Cueto; 13 Mayor; 12 Bond; 11 Hanley; 10 van Straaten; 9 Walshe; 8 C. Jones; 7 Pinkerton; 6 Sanderson; 5 Schofeild; 4 Fullarton; 3 Turner; 2 Titterell; 1 Sheridan

16 Cairns; 17 Yates ; 18 Day; 19 Davies; 20 Lund; 21 Hoyle; 22 Wigglesworth

Scorers: Bond (1T) van Straaten (1C, 5P)