Sale Sharks v Tigers AP Match Preview
By ChrisC
December 22 2014
A Salient Point. Here we are at the festive season and once again the round of drinks parties cranks into life, while not wishing to sound unduly “Grinchlike” after the first four or five I’ve really had enough of them, especially those where it’s my turn to drive home. Soft drinks are very overrated!
During my working days festive gatherings were rarely satisfactory occasions, no matter from which end of the seniority spectrum I view them.
At fifteen alcohol was yet to significantly feature in my recreational activities, so when I attended my first “works do” it was as a largely abstemious office boy.
As I walked into the vast ballroom, where the function was being held, it was a totally new experience. There was music, noise, laughter and of course booze.
A very glamorous girl, who I didn’t recognise, asked what I wanted to drink. It was only when she spoke that I realised it was Pam from the typing pool – but she was a vision in a sparkly low cut dress, no more the dowdy typist. Not wanting to appear gauche I hit upon my mother’s drink of choice; sweet sherry. Pam’s eyebrows lifted as she double checked my selection “Sherry? You sure?” I confirmed my choice with what I hoped was insouciance.
Upon the drink arriving and after a tentative sip, I consumed it as one would a Tequila shot. Mmmm! Nice!
The meal was soon served and I determined to remain with sherry. The occasion was certainly taking on a distinctively rosy hue – my shyness had disappeared - this was fun! Oddly though my speech was becoming a little jumbled – maybe it was the food, perhaps I was catching a cold?
The dancing started and I’m told I entered into the spirit of the thing with great enthusiasm.
I woke up on the platform of Chadwell Heath station discovering to my dismay that the turkey dinner and the copious amounts of sherry consumed had made an unwelcome reappearance on my overcoat.
I looked at my watch and saw that it was past midnight. There were no more trains. It was raining. I was cold. I was wet. I was filthy. I was in trouble.
I found a phone box and phoned home; “please, please let Dad answer” was my silent prayer. My mother’s voice came on the line; “Yes” was her one word salutation. She knew it was me.
Dad, with his coat pulled on over his pyjamas and a pair of stout shoes incongruously poking out from beneath their striped legs, came and rescued me having driven in his Hillman Minx the ten miles from our home. He shook his head, not a word was spoken other than: “your mother’s waiting”.
I’d learned an important lesson; fortified wine isn’t the same as wine and it’s not a session drink! The cleaning bill for my coat and suit wiped out the stipend I received from my £5.00 weekly wage. I didn’t have a happy Christmas, broke and grounded.
Four decades later when a Managing Director with numerous factories stretching from County Durham to the Welsh valleys all of whom had a local “works do” which my wife and I were obliged to attend. My PA assiduously planned my diary in cahoots with the local PAs so not a single function was missed. Too damn efficient was that lady!
At the “do” no sherry, or anything else alcoholic for that matter, passed our lips as my long suffering wife and I both needed to be on our guard.
A giant from despatch seemingly always wanted to punch my lights out for some grievance I knew nothing about. A nymphet from sales would have too much to drink and make a pass. A lothario from the production office would pay unwelcome attention to my wife.
As early as we respectably could we’d make our excuses to the General Manager of the factory concerned before scurrying back to the safety of our hotel with the depressing certitude that the same ritual would be re-enacted many more times before Christmas.
And then the aftermath. Oh the aftermath. The lothario and the nymphet would have been found in flagrante delicto on the back seat of the lothario’s Cortina. The giant would have punched anyone within reach and the police called by the hotel staff. The New Year would see the disciplinary process grind into life, there would be consequences. Always consequences.
It was awful in its very inevitability. The substrate of spite, lust, grudge settling and points scoring lurking below the infinitesimal veneer of faux seasonal bonhomie that alcohol strips away better than a hot iron ever could.
Bit like a match against Northampton really but without the lust!
I think that there’ll be precious little seasonal bonhomie for Tigers, faux or otherwise, from Steve Diamond’s Sale team when Tigers step down from Santa’s corporate sleigh in Manchester next Saturday.
Steve Diamond will have reminded his charges, I’m sure in no uncertain terms, of the events at Welford Road on Sunday 9th November when a strong Sale team took on something of a scratch Tigers squad comprising a selection of players returning from long term injuries, academy players and a few other first team members who are most often consigned to the bench.
Initially all went well for the visitors and they strode off for their half time refreshments with a thirteen points to three lead. It augured well for a famous victory, even if it was against a make do and mend Tigers’ team and even if it was in the LV= Cup. It was still at Welford Road.
After the teams re-took the field Sale just imploded – it was quite extraordinary and after overwhelming the visitors Tigers ran out the victors by twenty-nine points to thirteen. Sale failing to trouble the score board in the second period.
They took it out on London Irish the following week when they visited Manchester thumping them by thirty-six points to eight. Then they went to The Stoop and did a number on Harlequins before bearding Newcastle in their Kingston Park eerie the following week. Both were close run things but Sale showed grit and determination in squeezing out the victories.
In the ERCC Sale had back to back matches with Saracens who won the first leg at the AJB Stadium and Steve Diamond, ever the pragmatist, clearly not seeing a victory at Allianz Park having great potential, sensibly made eight changes to his starting XV who duly went down to a second defeat.
Last weekend the season’s surprise package; Exeter Chiefs, put on their Devonian thermals and trekked north to face a Sale side whose key personnel had a rest the previous weekend.
Sale put an end to Exeter’s winning run of eight matches with an 18-11 victory, Cueto and Cipriani getting the home team’s points, each crossing their opponents’ try line with Cipriani’s boot contributing the balance while Mr Barnes provided grist to the northern mill with his whistle as the visitors repeatedly attracted the London based official’s disapproval to such an extent I worry that Rob Baxter’s charges were distracted by what they could have thought was a mass attack of Tinnitus so ceaseless was Barnes’s whistle.
Now Sale are waiting to exact their revenge on Tigers having climbed to fifth in the league just two points ahead of Tigers who slipped one place to equal sixth (seventh on points difference).
Meanwhile Tigers travelled down the road to Northampton and suffered a narrow loss even though Mr Doyle was eventually persuaded by the TMO to apply the appropriate sanction of a Red Card for Dylan Hartley elbowing Matt Smith in the face, thus reducing the home side to fourteen players for the majority of the game.
Mr Doyle seemed genuinely embarrassed at having to act so harshly and his discomfiture became all the greater shortly after when he awarded a penalty try against the hosts. It did seem to me that thereafter Mr Doyle refereed the teams to differing criteria even to the extent of reducing Tigers to fourteen players as he invented a new Yellow Card offence of collegiate high tackles. Who knew!?
Northampton’s back play was superior to that of the visitors and in the end it prevailed against a weary looking Tigers who eventually and yet again ended up with a make shift back division playing the same crash ball strategy with Allen rarely breaking through. When Tigers did manage to get the ball wide both Benjamin and Goneva looked dangerous but it was rare that the wide men got a chance.
I have the feeling that Richard Cockerill rather “bet the farm” by playing a largely unchanged side from that which had been battered in Toulon less than a week earlier.
Now he has to decide whether to double down by playing it again at the A J Bell Stadium.
I suspect he may do so instead of getting the troops rested and the fires stoked for the visit of Bath to Welford Road the following weekend.
Sale’s front row looked in good shape when they gained an advantage for large parts of the game against the traditionally rugged Chiefs’ triptych with the seventeen time capped Moldovian tight-head Vadim Cobilas at the heart of their efforts and if he faces Ayerza it will be the key battle as to who controls the set piece.
On the other side of the front row it’ll probably be Dan Cole, who’s made a storming return to form after his long lay-off making mincemeat of any unfortunate loose-head who’s been unlucky enough to pack down opposite him. Come Saturday that’s likely to be Welshman Lewis-Roberts, who had a brief sojourn to Toulon a few years back, facing him. Lewis-Roberts enjoyed considerable success opposing stand in Exeter tight-head Moray Low but I’ll wager he’ll find Cole a rather different proposition, as he will know from the time he took him in the LV= Cup at Welford Road in what was the British Lion’s first match after a ten month absence.
Marc Jones, another Welshman, played very well against Exeter and impressed in the loose and around the breakdown. I thought he got the benefit of the doubt from Mr Barnes as he popped up out of the scrum like a Meercat and if, as if Cockerill continues his rotation of Tom Youngs and Ghiraldini, Jones will face the uncompromising Italian.
Hard to see anything but advantage Tigers here, especially if the serious grunt of Brad Thorn is once again available. Already a totemic figure for Tigers I hope he’s fit and gets the start.
Geoff Parling isn’t quite back to his influential best just yet so as he needs game he’ll get the start I expect.
The athletic and ever impressive Kiwi Michael Patterson hasn’t been seen since he was part of a good win for his side down at The Stoop so I guess he must be injured and if this is so and remains the case then my guess is that the solid ex Scarlets and London Welsh lock; Jonathan Mills could be partnering the feisty enforcer; Nathan Hines who since his arrival from Clermont has been injured since the seventh minute of the early season fixture at Gloucester.
Always a strong carrier and a player not to be messed with, the seventy-five time capped Scottish international picking up five Yellow Cards during his appearances for Scotland to add to the fourteen garnered with his various clubs: Clermont, Leinster, USAP and Edinburgh.
If Thorn starts for the Tigers these two veterans can be expected to go head to head and toe to toe.
In the back row for that most inspired of signings; Dan Braid, who joined from the Blues and is in his third season with Sale, will surely start. If Braid, the heartbeat of the team, goes well than so do Sale. Combative and precise he’s a real star in my book.
One of that rarest of breeds a genuine open-side; Dave Seymour, has also been injured but after a pipe opener last week I expect this truffle hound to lock snouts with Julian Salvi who, weary as he must be, not only from playing but from the stupidity of referees’ management of the breakdown, looks likely to start in a close contest.
Bill Beaumont’s boy; twenty-two year old Josh, a #8 cum lock, seems to be a key figure at the line out having joined from Newcastle’s academy back in 2012. His proud dad was in the stands last weekend to see his lad play well and even Stuart Lancaster was on parade to cast his eye over the runners and riders.
I hope that having had a break Jamie Gibson gets the blind side slot for Tigers with Croft continuing his rehab from the bench later on. At the moment Gibson just brings more to the pitch and so should be preferred for the moment.
Another Scotland international; Chris Cusiter ex of Reivers, USAP and Glasgow brings the experience of over sixty caps to the scrum half spot for Sale and appeared cool as a cucumber against Exeter but then his pack was giving him a platform surely purchased from DFS and Exeter pretty much left him alone at the breakdown. Things could be different next Saturday when I expect his possession to be more fragmented while that of Ben Youngs could be as well presented as Nigella’s Christmas feast.
Danny Cipriani also looked calm and assured with a precise game from hand and foot. Such a clever player and Steve Diamond has done a wonderful job reining in the young English fly-half’s more exuberant excesses both on and off the field.
He’ll give Tigers plenty to think about around the back of the breakdown and I do worry about Owen Williams at the moment. He seems suddenly short of confidence whereas Freddie Burns has recovered his and would be a good antidote to Cipriani’s spell weaving as the Sale defence will know the ex Gloucester Tiger can stir the cauldron as well. Tough love is Cockerill’s style but it would be a kindness to the talented young Welshman to give him a bench spot this week and encourage Burns a bit.
While, with the continued absence of Bai, Loamanu and Tuilagi, the Tigers’ centres do look lightweight when matched against the wonderfully tough and talented All Black Sam Tuitupuo and the no nonsense Samoan international ex Highlander Jonny Leota, who’s predictable in that he’ll run through or over his opponent or scythe them down in defence whereas the equally robust Tuitupuo has developed his skill set well since his Worcester days when he had as much subtlety as a Centurion tank.
Tuitupou isn’t a giant though at 86 kgs and so defensively the slightly heavier Anthony Allen should be able to match him and could even find some space through the 10/12 channel where Cipriani can over commit.
Leota though is 16 kgs heavier and without one of the heavyweight Tigers reappearing it could fall to Goneva who at 97kgs provides a physical match and he has played at centre for Fiji. The other option, and one that I favour, would be to move in another international centre; Matt Tait, to Tigers’ troubled outside centre spot. Tait can’t match Leota physically but could find some space as matador to Leota’s bull.
With Tom Arscott injured veteran club man Mark Cueto is back in harness. He was never the quickest winger and maybe his kicking game has gone a bit but he is just so experienced and his try and the approach work for Cipriani’s against Exeter was top drawer.
On the other wing I was pleased to see Will Addison on duty last weekend. I’ve always admired the talented winger but if the equally inspiring Tom Brady is available then I’d not be shocked to see him start.
Tigers meanwhile will surely stick with Goneva on one wing, especially as he’s back in try scoring ways, but on the other side I’d like to see Miles Benjamin preferred to Scully who looks jaded and could do with a rest. Benjamin’s run that led to a Tigers’ try last week had me cheering. It’s what he brings to the party; muscle and footwork and he can’t be blamed for the Saints try after he was placed in an untenable position of a three attackers versus him.
I hadn’t seen young nineteen year old Mike Haley before the LV= match at Welford Road when he picked up a Yellow Card. On second viewing last Friday he looks a real rough diamond, sound enough under the high ball and possessed of excoriating pace, a real talent who I expect to see again next Saturday.
If Tait does move to centre to bring chiaroscuro to Tigers’ centre play then I’d like to see Tommy Bell get a start at full back. Not only is he a solid player but a great kicker and would calm Burn’s nerves if the kicking from the tee weighs too heavily upon him.
Tigers pack should provide the wherewithal. The question can the Tigers backs make it count?
If not then I can see Sale ending their losing run against Tigers.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014:12:30:09:26:02 by Tiggs.
I said nothing of great pith and moment, just to thank Chris for customarily excellent piece and to say I couldn't call this one. Still can't.
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The lowest depth to which people can sink before God is defined by the word 'journalist'.
Soren Kierkegaard
Merry Christmas to you and all the family, and good health and happiness for 2015.
) I wish you and Helen a happy Christmas.If Tigers win this game it will be more down to Sale playing badly rather than Tigers playing very well.
Our backs are playing in a very un-Geordan-like manner. They better get it together else sale will just walk round the corners and do us.
1 - Yes Patterson is injured and won't be back for a while.
2 - For the LV game it's true the Sale team had more first-teamers starting but was far from a strong team, our backs particularly were inexperienced.
3 - ELR has improved significantly over the last few games, and although Dan Cole is a great tight-head I don't expect the same turn-around as in the LV.
Much will depend on how the ref interprets the drive (in or up). I hope both front rows behave and it's a proper contest.
Another fine preview. Expect a close win on the basis of forward advantage but the team now selected makes me wonder if a little wizardry in the backs might finally be in the offing.
...
A belated happy Christmas to everyone and thanks for the kind comments.
I hope you and Andrea had a good time Rich and Mike and Fiona also. Indeed my best wishes go to all of you.
I must say I'm pleased with the look of the Tigers' back division for this afternoon. Bai being match fit is a real bonus and will allow some interesting combinations later on if required. As Bai(like the missing Loamanu) is very flexible in the positions he can play in the options open up.
I feel more positive now. I think the forwards will have enough and the backs could make the most of it.
Back on Monday with the next epistle!