Sale Away

Well what did we expect? We were travelling to the in-form team in the Premiership and also still trying to find some form. I naively thought we would kick on and give Wasps a good game at the Ricoh, but I was wrong. We lacked intensity in both attack and defense which allowed Wasps to score and score. It was fair to say that I was bitterly disappointed by the defeat, and especially the manner of it. I thought we looked clueless at times, not knowing how to break down Wasps as well as how to stop them.

 Praise has to go to Wallace, who has really stepped up over the last few weeks and is finally fulfilling his full potential, he played really well in a team that did not. Luamanu looked like he is slowly regaining fitness but apart from them I saw few positives. I truly believed we would have taken a huge amount of confidence from that Leicester and go into that Wasps game with some momentum and lack of pressure. But the team was seemingly too relaxed and was not up to it. But as I said in the preview for the game, this away game against Wasps is not going to decide where we finish and we now have three hugely important fixtures before our internationals return and we have two at home against Bath and Worcester which will be tough but you would hope we will win them. 

We need at least two wins out of these three games in order to keep in touch, but before the two home games we have to travel north up to AJ Bell Stadium to face a Sale side that are doing a lot better this season than, I have to admit, I thought they would. I thought they would struggle with the lack of additions to their squad, but I unfairly ignored the ability they already possessed in their squad. They have to be taken seriously as top 6 and top 4 contenders and there is one key reason for that which is their outstanding home form. Sale are a completely different proposition when playing in front of their own fans, they really come out and attack you early on and try to blow you away in the first 20 minutes. This is best shown by their match versus Sarries last Saturday when they raced into a 17-point lead after as many minutes and scored some cracking tries in the process. 

They have a number of real standout players across their team, which have really developed this season. In the pack, I am big fan of Ross Harrison and Tommy Taylor and I think the latter should be pushing for England soon. We will also have to watch out for their captain and chief scavenger David Seymour, as well as their big Pacific Islander back rower TJ Ioane who probably has a few clubs sniffing around him. In the backs, Sam James has broken onto the scene this season and I have been really impressed with him and he is player who I would love to join Quins and compete with Lowe for the 13 jersey. He is a modern day 13 who pretty much has it all, big tall athletic build and he has great rugby skills. He could potentially be an English version of Jonathon Davies. A great prospect and a player I will be watching closely to see how he develops. They also have the evergreen Irish scrum half Stringer who fresh off a new contract and playing extremely well. Out wide, watch out for Nev Edwards if he plays, electric finisher and another who has stepped up this season.

Well, that’s leaves us with the Sale 10 who perhaps is not the most popular man at Sale or with Quins at the moment. Cipriani was heavily linked with a move to the Stoop before Wasps swooped in and snatched him. He said that it was a great chance to return home, well actually to move to Coventry due to their relocation, and also the fact that CoS was leaving did not help, but I personally think the £400,000 contract probably had more of an influence. Also Diamond was not happy with Cipriani´s comments on joining Wasps and I have sympathy for him but with the lack of options at 10, he has to pick him. Although on the pitch, we will have to be aware of his attacking skills but recently his place kicking has left a lot to be desired as he definitely cost them potential wins against Sarries and also Worcester, when in both matches he was wayward with more attempts than he got. If I was a Sale fan, I would be extremely unhappy with the way he has conducted himself with the move, especially as Sale were the only club willing to take the risk on him when he wanted to come back to England.

Team Selection 
Hmm.. well we do not have many options at the moment so it is hard to see that many changes to the squad that played against Wasps. The only hope I have is that we have Lowe and Easter back to play in this game as I do think they would make a huge difference to our side. With Stanley also picking up a knock I pray Lowe is fit because I do not want to see Hopper playing. If Lowe is not fit I would prefer us to play Merchant at 13 which is a possibility with no U20 game this weekend. I also heard that Twomey was due to return soon and was targeting this game as a return date but who knows if he will be playing. I would make two tactical switches in the pack and bring Ward and Matthews back in for Buchanan and Merrick as we need experience in that pack and I think we need that energy that Ward brings to the pitch. Then in the backline, I wonder if Oshea is tempted to play Visser and/or Roberts in this crucial game. I would definitely play Visser if he has the option to, but Roberts has played a lot of intense rugby recently so the risk of injury probably outweighs the benefits of him playing. 

Quins team I HOPE to see; Lambert, Ward, Jones, Matthews, Horwill, Luamanu, Wallace, Easter; Tebaldi, Botica, Visser (walker), Sloan, Lowe (Merchant), Yarde, Chisholm 

Sale team vs Sarries; 15. Mike Haley, 14. Will Addison, 13. Sam James, 12. Johnny Leota, 11. Tom Arscott, 10. Danny Cipriani, 9. Peter Stringer, 1. Ross Harrison, 2. Tommy Taylor, 3. Vadim Cobilas, 4. Bryn Evans, 5. Andrei Ostrikov, 6. Cameron Neild, 7. David Seymour (c), 8. Mark Easter. 

Above is the team that got the draw against Sarries last weekend and I do not think there will be many changes. We could see Nev Edwards back involved due to our lack of a kicking threat and I think Ioane could come in a 6 as Diamond will have seen our troubles against big ball carriers in the Wasps match. 

I think this is a huge game for us this weekend. Not in terms of the result as a loss doesn’t put us miles behind anyone due to the tight nature of the top 8 teams this year, but I worry about our confidence and mentality if we lose heavily again against another one of our close positional rivals. We need a big response in this game and whilst Sale are not missing many players and have a settled side, I do not see a major difference between the two sides so I expect it to be a pretty close game. Their strong home form this season does not scare me as much as it probably should because we actually have a pretty good record up there in recent years in comparison to other teams. I believe we have won 9 out of the last 10 fixtures against Sale in all competitions so we have history on our side. 

I think we have to concentrate on bullying them upfront and try and play rugby in their half. I got increasingly frustrated last weekend by us continually inviting pressure on ourselves by playing rugby in our own half. Oshea keeps talking about game management and improving it, but where is this improvement?! Also in recent years, we have had a good trait of winning important games, like the Leicester one two weeks ago. All I ask is the team to give it their all and play smart rugby, and then I think the result will come. I think we will see a response this weekend and a side that knows that improvement needs to start happening now rather than in 3 weeks time when it could be too late. It is time for everyone to step up and be counted, and show some guts to grind out some wins. I don’t care about our nice running rugby style right now, all I want is some wins and if that means winning 3-0 because we have just broken the game down then so be it. Unfortunately I do not expect this to happen and actually there could be a lot of points on show but I just have a feeling we should have enough to get an important win. 

My Prediction; Sale 24 Quins 29