EDGELEY PARK, STOCKPORT

MATCH REPORT

A win for the Saints would keep them in the top 2 and hot on the heels of Leicester Tigers who, on the previous day, had ensured that London Irish wouldn’t gain any ground on themselves or on the Saints. A win for Sale would give them some breathing space at the nasty end of the table and although they have a game in hand over both Leeds and Worcester, a win for either of these two teams against Saracens and Quins respectively would heap even more pressure on Sale at a time when form seems to have deserted them.

Saints last away trip ended in a bonus point loss to a Quins side who had received a bit of a beating at the hands of Gloucester the week before. Sale then went to Kingsholm last week and shipped 6 tries to Gloucester. Very aware of the backlash encountered at Quins I was hoping that the boys turned up expecting a fight from the Sharks. I was also praying that our away woes of last season were not going to rear their ugly heads again at the business end of this one, especially as we have never won a league match at Edgeley Park.

Saints in their dreaded white away kit kicked off the first half and immediately won the ball and started to attack the Sale defence. It was all Saints for the first 20 minutes and the resultant pressure generated 4 kickable penalties. Chris White pinged Sale for not rolling away and a shot at goal was called. No problem I thought, as Myler stepped up to take the first which drifted to the right of the uprights. Cue the prerequisite jeering from the home fans and shots of Saints support in the crowd in agony!

The week before at FG, Myler gave an almost flawless kicking display from the tee so I wasn’t expecting him to struggle. Unfortunately the next penalty taken almost from the same spot as the first drifted agonisingly wide again. Myler was having a bad day at the office with his kicking and would miss a further two attempts at goal before being relieved of the kicking duties. Maybe there was something in the air as Sale missed two penalties: one from the boot of the usually reliable Charlie Hodgson, and another long range effort by Lee Thomas.

No matter as the Saints were soon back on the front foot deep in Sale territory and Courtney Lawes’ offload in the tackle went forward just metres from the line and a chance for Chris Ashton to score went begging. Saints old boy Big Ben Cohen was getting around the park, and a big man and ball tackle from him on Joe Ansbro forced the ball from the centres’ grasp with an overlap out wide.

Eventually Saints were able to get on the scoreboard thanks to Paul Diggin who plucked a Myler chip from the air and went over with a Sale defender trying in vain to prevent the try. A quick check of the grounding by the TMO and Chris White awarded the try. The conversion was slotted by Bruce Reihana and we went into the break with a lead of 7 points with Sale yet to score. Would we rue the missed opportunities on the 2^nd half? If Sale scored first after half time then the momentum of the game could easily swing in favour of the home side. I had made the previous Saintly visit to EP in the LV= cup where reinforcements had to be drafted in late on to halt a late surge by Sale.

I need not have worried. 10 minutes into the 2^nd half Chris Ashton got his mitts on the ball on the Sale 22 and seeing space on the blind side, slipped across the defence before offloading to Joe Ansbro. The centre moved it out to Bruce who, in a tight space, had the presence of mind to look inside for the ever present Chris Ashton who would go over for his 12^th league try of the season. Bruce missed the conversion.

Around the hour mark Nacho left the pitch that he used to call home to be replaced by the giant Aussie lock Dan Vickerman who had a good solid 20 minutes, and it was good to finally see him in the team. Stephen Myler also made way for Shane Geraghty and Phil Dowson came on for Courtney Lawes.

Sale continued to create chances of their own with hooker Neil Briggs right in the thick of things, but they seemed to fumble or turn over possession at crucial times. When they did get close the Saints defence was immense with Lee Dickson seeming to be involved all over the park. He would later win man of the match from the Sky pundits for his hard graft and would be my MOTM too. It was good to see Roger Wilson back from injury and making his usual hard yards drawing plenty of defenders as he went. Our scrum seemed to be going very well despite having Dylan and Euan away on international duty, and our lineout was fairly solid too from what I could see TV. As usual you could single out every player for special praise but the team play for each other as a unit and it shows.

Saints won a penalty in the Sale half and Geraghty nailed his first and only shot at goal to make it 0-15 with 15 minutes to go. Sale would need at least a converted try and another score to get anything from the game.

It took until 5 minutes from time for Sale to get some reward for all their hard graft and it was none other than Ben Cohen who busted through the committed Saints defence to get Sale on the score board. Charlie Hodgson was a tad lucky with the wide conversion which went in off the post, 7-15.

From the restart Sale drove up the field and won another penalty on our 10m line and a chance to make it 10-15 and earn Sale a valuable losing bonus point. Sadly for him, Hodgson’s luck had run out and the kick rebounded off the post and into Saints hands. With the clock showing 80:00 the ball was taken out by Shane and the Saints headed south with the 4 points.

Well done to our boys for securing another away win and credit to Sale for coming out and trying to play some rugby. Good luck to them for the rest of the season.