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| Sale
Sharks 30 - 14 Edinburgh Gunners (25/08/2006) |
The
Sharks kicked off their first home match of the season, a friendly
against the Edinburgh Gunners, with a long downfielder towards the
Railway End. The less than abundant crowd, mostly season ticket holders,
made up for their lack of strength in depth with some keen chanting.
Sale recovered possession after a line out; Charlie Hodgson got the
ball moving out wide and it looked as though a great try was imminent,
when Edinburgh intercepted. Immediately the referee's whistle blew,
as he called a penalty for offside. Hodgson duly kicked for three
points.
Following the restart Sebastien Chabal looked eager to impress his
fans, pulling off a diving tackle, arms outstretched, by the very
tips of his fingers. Hodgson too, was perhaps looking for a positive
reaction when he and skipper Jason Robinson elected to kick for touch
and the ensuing lineout after another Edinburgh offence. It came to
nothing however, and just a couple of minutes later Edinburgh had
a lineout of their own on the Sale line. Easy as anything they ran
across for the try, and Chris Patterson converted to take the score
to 3-7.
The Edinburgh team, thick with Scottish internationals, kept applying
pressure on the Sharks, breaking through the line, and only a series
of excellent tackles from the likes of Chabal, and new signing Chris
Bell stopped the Edinburgh onslaught. A year ago it would have seemed
relevant to point out that Hodgson too was keen in the tackle, but
the Sale supporters have very much come to believe in his defensive
skills now.
With eleven minutes remaining in the half Hodgson again chose to kick
to touch instead of the posts, and again the Sharks failed to convert
this ambition into a try. When the opportunity arose just one minute
later he chose to go for the posts and brought the Sharks to within
a point of the visiting team 6-7.
This seemed to kick-start the Sale backline, and a wonderful series
of moves saw Chris Mayor flying towards the Cheadle End, offloading
to Mark Cueto, who nearly broke through for the line. N the next phase
of play the ball went out wide where Sale had a man or two over, and
Hodgson passed to the waiting Robinson, who selflessly gave the ball
to Magnus Lund to score. A conversion saw the scores at 13-7.
After the restart the ball was again all Sale's, with Oriol Ripol
the man of the moment, making every tackle and pulling off a huge
run down the right hand side of the pitch. With just seconds on the
clock, and deep in Edinburgh territory the referee awarded a penalty
to Sale, and Hodgosn elected to kick to touch once more. Seconds later,
with the clock reading 00:00 there was a 5-metre scrum, into which
the Edinburgh front row looked very unwilling to go. What ensued might
have looked like a pushover try by one of the Sale forwards, but was
awarded by the ref as a penalty try. With Hodgson again kicking the
conversion the teams retired to the changing rooms 20-7.
It had been suggested that the team that came out in the first half
was what Phillipe Saint-Andre considered his strongest team. It was
interesting then to see that the only change made during the break
was that Wigglesworth came off, after an excellent performance, replaced
by Sililo Martens.
Edinburgh opened the half looking much the better side, heaping pressure
on the Sale defensive line, and moving closer and closer to the Cheadle
End and looking very capable of scoring. In an echo of Sale's first
half tactics they opted to kick for touch rather than the posts when
the Sharks eventually gave up a penalty. With the lineout at 15 metres
this was a job for the backs rather than a rolling maul and Edinburgh
centre Dey ran past Cueto with ease to touch down. A conversion brought
the Gunners very much into contention: 20-14
With thirty minutes remaining Sale began a long slew of substitutions,
which eventually saw the whole extended bench come onto the pitch,
with the exception of Pierre Goana. First up were Andy Sheridan, Steve
Hanley and Juan Fernandez Lobbe. It was only a matter of seconds before
Sheridan had a chance to show if he was match fit or not, with his
first scrum. Perhaps it was just clouded judgement, but it looked
like the Edinburgh front row buckled.
Both sides showed they were more than capable of scoring despite the
greasy conditions, but there was something amiss with the Sharks.
It looked like the pack weren't dominating as they should have been.
Let's blame the conditions. However, with 14 minutes remaining they
showed their class with a driving pushover try at the Railway End.
New signing Lee Thomas lined up to take the conversion, which was
his first place kick in front of the Edgeley crowd, which went wide.
25-14.
Steve Hanley, who had been very strong in defence, showed some of
his magic, running half the length of the pitch to score his try.
Following another conversion attempt from Thomas the scores stood
at 30-14. Hanley's old friend and rival Mark Cueto must have felt
piqued, and romped across for a try of his own, beautifully skipping
through three tackles, but the referee called it back, disallowed.
Despite the 30-14, four-try scoreboard, the game felt a little thin.
Lets hope the Sharks put in twice as much passion next week for the
Premiership opener, and rematch of last year's final, at Welford Road
against the Tigers.
Report by Ben Lomond for salesupporters.co.uk |
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