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View from the south stand: Sale 29 Bath 17


By Cap'n Major Bloodnok
April 20 2016

Part 1 of the Sale/Bath double-header that includes the match postponed as an indirect result of the atrocity in Paris last year. Bath hopeful of a top-half finish, but Sale had the better chance.

Oh, to be in England, now that April’s here...

Match day started with glorious sunshine; that gorgeous quality that only a spring morning can bring. There I was, walking the dog, breathing the clean air, reflecting that life can be good. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, Sale could cock things up against Bath, that’s what could go wrong. A guaranteed way to put a downer on things, that would’ve been.

After Saturday’s matches, Sale (and Bath) had two games in hand on all the important teams—important, in this context, meaning “anyone between us and top-flight Europe next season”.

The situation was: Saints, 5th, 52 points, 2 games to play; Quins, 6th, 50 points, 2 games to play; Sale, 7th, 46 points, 4 games to play. TL;DR: 5th place is in our own hands—no need to rely on other results to achieve a top-half finish.


Two medium-size coaches waiting at The Brook suggested that there would be a decent crowd (6,000-odd, officially), and we set off on the remarkably easy and quick journey to the ground. Can I just emphasise that: as it has been for the past three years (i.e. every year apart from year 1), there were no undue hold-ups, no endless waits in traffic and no panicked rush to get in before kick-off. Twenty minutes from supping in The Brook to supping in the Shark Tank.

Just thought I’d mention that.

At this point I was going to use the presence of the Ford brothers in this match to start a running joke about Fiestas and Focuses but, since Ford The Elder didn’t take any part in the game, it didn’t really make sense.

Insert your own vehicle-related witticisms if you feel the lack.


Anyway, Ford minor (See? Why couldn’t they have been called Morris?) kicked off. If there were such things as omens, they would have been good ones, since the kick sailed merrily into touch on the full.

This also signalled the start of what appeared to be an essentially slow-motion game. Every scrum—and we had about two or three times as many scrums as were actually awarded—took forever; line-outs happened eventually and then there was Ford’s preparation for kicks…

A couple of minutes in, and referee Pearce awarded Bath a kickable penalty and Ford duly called for the kicking tee. Everybody in the ground took the opportunity to go and refresh their drinks and were back in time to see the (relatively easy: remember that when we get to the second half) kick slip wide of the posts.

With about ten minutes played, Vadeeeeem scored a typical prop’s try. I.e. he gathered the ball on our 5-metre line, ran the full length of the pitch, skipping past three—no, five—defenders before swallow-diving over the try line to the adulation of the capacity, 73,000, crowd.

Or, in this reality, picked it up 2 metres out from their line and flopped over through the gap where a defender should have been.

Whichever version of reality you prefer, Danny added the extra points for a 7-0 lead.

Five minutes later and Bath were awarded another penalty in a kickable position. I sat down and read the first seven chapters of Rogue Herries by Hugh Walpole while we waited for Ford to line up the kick. This time he was successful.

7-3.

Halfway through the half, Sale showed what they are capable of when they don’t keep dropping the ball. Slick movement through the back line took the ball out to Will Addison wide right, some 20 metres out from the Bath line.

You can look at Will’s stats, and they’re mighty impressive for carries, metres made, defenders beaten and so on, but they don’t convey the sheer power he exhibited in running in the try, handing off Ollie Devoto in the process. Cipriani kicked the touch-line conversion (remember that when we get to the second half). 14-3.

The remainder of the half descended into a mostly midfield battle in which Bath had the better of possession, but Sale (I felt) had the sharper back line.

A scrum penalty to Bath, during which I was able to prepare a light 3-course luncheon, pulled it back to 14-6.

Bath then thought they had scored a length-of-the-field interception try through Rokodokodokoduguni, but ref Pearce brought things back for a deliberate knock-on by Rob Webber (who he?). Cips kicked the penalty (3 from 3, by the way) for 17-6 and, to close the half, a quickly taken (only three more chapters of Rogue Herries) Bath penalty left things at 17-9 at the turn-around.


Now, here I would really like to skip over the next 30 minutes, but some explanation of how we come to the last ten minutes level at 17 all is necessary.

I’ve mentioned before about how Sale play well first half or towards the north stand—here we got yet another confirming instance of my theory, as expounded in last week’s write-up.

First, Haley dropped a high ball, then the Russian Bear lost it in contact, then SammyT dropped it. Maybe they need to cut out the beer and pies at half time, or whatever it is that sees them start the second half in a sort of mental torpor that lets the oppo back into the game.

Five minutes in and we got a tedious series of reset scrums that only stopped when referee Pearce essentially told the front rows to sort it out or there would 6 new players contesting the next one. Magically, the next scrum held straight and we got on with the game.

A bit of slick passing from Bath and they eventually managed to get past the excellent Sale defence for Rokodokodokoduguni to score near the right-hand touchline. The conversion gave me the opportunity to listen once again to The Hanover Band’s excellent recording of the fourth movement of Beethoven’s ninth symphony in D minor, before watching the kick slide wide of the posts (from almost the same position as Danny had nailed one in the first half. Just sayin’).

Five minutes later and another Bath penalty (a light meal and a recital of Handel’s Messiah) brought the scores level at 17 all.

And now I will skip forward, save to mention three missed penalties: one by Ford (an audio book of James Joyce’s Ulysses) and two by Danny, the second of which left the boot with a sort of ‘floomp’ sound and whiffled as it passed embarrassingly right of the posts. I swear, if that ball had quacked on the way past, I wouldn’t have been surprised. And that's why I've been asking you to remember certain kicks from the first half...

Then, with about 10 minutes to go, Sale woke up. A series of penalties kicked to the corner eventually saw Dominic Day invited to ponder the consequences of bringing down a maul. From the resulting line out, Sale recovered some of their maul-fu that seemed to have gone missing recently and Boris ended up falling down for the try. The conversion went sort of over the top of the right-hand post. The TJs kept their flags down, but seemed unsure of whether it had gone over or not. The TMO was unable to resolve things, so Pearce left the decision as given—no conversion. 22-17, five minutes to go.

As rugby fans, we like to see a good, physical game. We love the big hits, the crunch, the pratfall. What we don’t like to see, though, is the player stretched out on the ground, not moving.

Kyle Eastmond came off worst from a tackle with Will Addison (no question of any wrongdoing—it was simply an unfortunate accident). Addison signalled the ref immediately and he stopped the game to allow the medical staff on. The next eight minutes or so were horribly reminiscent of that day at Edgeley Park when we knew that Graeme Bond had played his last for us. Word later was that Eastmond was soon up and talking, which is great and we wish him well.

Play restarted with a scrum to Sale, who went on the attack and, after some enterprising phase play, Sam James offloaded the ball to Mooooooooj, who pressed on to within a couple of metres of the line and offloaded to Mark Easter who managed to get the touchdown for the bonus point try.

Cips added the conversion (more difficult than any of his misses), and Sale ran down the final few seconds after the restart to seal a 5-pointer 29-17.


Five league points puts Sale in sixth place one point ahead of Quins and one behind Saints with a game in hand (the return fixture at Bath).

We’ll have to see what the situation is once the game in hand has been played but, at the moment, Europe next season is entirely in Sale’s control—a different prospect to my gloomy prognosis after the two bad defeats at Worcester and Wasps.

 

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