Glaws away record gets worse and worse

Eight games without a win away from home ... the alarm bells are ringing for Gloucester as they continue to demonstrate a fragile side of their game as soon as they leave Kingsholm. And they will remain no more than a mediocre team as long as they fail to put it right.

Losing 13-11 at Sale may not be as bad a result as it would have been in the previous couple of seasons, so much have the Sharks improved, but it certainly doesn’t bode well for the rest of the campaign.

Sale, who have never lkost at Edgeley Park to Glaws, were leading 10-0 at half-time, and though Glaws staged a comeback with two Tim Taylor penalties and a try from Henry Trinder, they never quite had enough to get a result.

Coach Bryan Redpath told the BBC: "We disrespected field position and conditions in the first half to go 10-0 down and you can't do that. Away performances are about playing in the right areas of the pitch which we didn't do - we gifted them most of the points.

"Up front we battled extremely hard, asked a lot of the forwards and I don't think that we complimented them with some of our decisions.

"We had a couple of opportunities and messed up a line-out in the last five minutes to potentially get a position for a penalty, so I'm hugely disappointed because I think that was a game we should have won."

No argument with the last theory – Glaws could certainly have won.

But what about “disrespected field position and conditions”? How can you disrespect field position and conditions? Fail to use them properly or adapt to them, fail to realise how important they are – yes. But disrespect?

Complimenting the forwards – or does he mean complementing? – is another strange one, as rugby follows football with an over-flowery abuse of the English language which at times defies the observer to understand what is being said.

If BR had said: “We are good enough to win, but we messed it up because we didn’t adapt to the rain and wind,” we’d all know what he meant, because that is what happened.

Sharks coach Steve Diamond was more clear what he thought when he said: “The first 15 minutes, we knocked the hell out of them really, it was a real physical game.” Actually, his job title is “executive director of sport”, so while he goes in for plain talking, his employers clearly don’t. What others sports do Sale Sharks go in for?

Glaws take a break from the Premiership next weekend, but not from Sale – they are their opponents at Kingsholm in the first LV= Cup game of the season, and the fans won’t be too happy if they make a mess of it again.