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Sale Sharks 23 Harlequins 25


By Whaley Shark
April 26 2015

Well, losing 23-25 seems to be becoming a habit and, while I didn’t see any of last week’s game against London Irish, it sounds as if we contributed substantially to our own downfall in both that match and yesterday’s.  

The game was pretty much over within half an hour as we leaked three soft tries, the first two from charged down clearance kicks. The third came from a quickly taken Quins’ penalty on half way. We were caught napping as Marlon Yarde jinked his way through a disorganised defence to score on the right. Quins secured the four try bonus just before half time, with a swift and precise attack down the left, finished by Danny Care. The only glimmers of light at half time were that we had a couple of penalties and Quins missed three of their four conversions, so the scoreline was ‘only’ 22-6.

Quins picked up another penalty early in the second half, but it wasn’t until Dimes started to empty the bench with half an hour to go that we started to show better form. A penalty to the corner let us try our old faithful rolling maul. That gave us another penalty and saw Quins’ hooker, Dave Ward, in the bin, and this time, when the battering ram wasn’t obviously going to work, a neat cross kick gave Tom Arscott a two-on-one and he crossed for a try.

Quins rather dug in then, intent on heading down the motorway with the five points, and there was no score for twenty minutes. We had opportunities, but lack of precision prevented us from building sustained pressure. As the clock ran down, Tom Arscott picked up his second try of the afternoon, after some neat distribution from an attacking lineout. That went unconverted and, just a couple of minutes later, Mark Cueto showed that, while he might not have his previous pace, he’s still got an eye for a good line, as he finished off a well worked attack which originated on the half way line. The conversion attempt came back off a post, leaving Quins with a 2 point lead and, that’s how it stayed as, with clock showing zero, we attempted unsuccessfully to go the length of the pitch for a winning score.

I don’t know what it was, but we didn’t look our usual selves in the first half. Maybe we were just rusty, but we seemed to struggle to get continuity in our play. Add in some quick thinking from Quins and that was probably a lethal cocktail. We did well to come back as strongly as we did but this result leaves us with a growing gap to sixth, one which could be an almost unbridgeable eight or nine points by the end of this afternoon if Wasps beat Chiefs. At the moment, we look more like a side in the lower half of the table, alongside Quins and Irish, and I have a feeling that’ll be where we now end up. Frustrating, but hey ho……. Back in a fortnight for the Falcons game.

Finally, just to repeat our plea for stories to keep the board going over the summer. We need a front page story every two weeks at least, otherwise the board will be taking a summer holiday. Please let the Major or myself know if you can provide something.

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