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View from the fun bus: Newcastle 15 Sale 21


By Cap'n Major Bloodnok
May 9 2016

Two weeks ago, fifth place was ours for the taking. One disastrous result later and we’re in 7th place, needing a win at Newcastle and for Exeter to do us a favour against Quins to reach 6th and Champions’ Cup qualification.          

There is no magic formula for working out who[1], in any given sporting squad, the fans will take to their hearts. It’s rarely the big name signing; it may be the lad who’s come up through the ranks from toilet-urchin to nailed-on starter.

Or it may be, as here, the unknown guy from a nation that doesn’t even play rugby; whose arrival was greeted with a mass chorus of “who dat?”, but whose departure was an occasion of great—and genuine—sadness for so many.


And so to that final game. The fun bus (sponsored by the Stockport and Oldham Scenic Tours Company) set off at a time that should be illegal on a Saturday, and was soon heading in a direction that was vaguely oriented towards Newcastle. The weather became more overcast and cooler as we headed further away from charted territory into unknown lands, where the natives speak a strange language and fortify themselves with a potion known as “broon”.

Eventually, after many adventures and several pork pies[2], we approached Ice Station X-Ray. The grey, wind-swept edifice loomed forebodingly as we grimly entered the dark maw that was the entrance to what we knew of simply as “West Stand”. They say dangerous creatures lurk within—I had my wallet eviscerated when I ordered a pint of bitter, but fortunately remained otherwise unscathed.

As the time for kick-off approached, we donned our extra-warm thermals (the natives were, of course, all wearing cap-sleeve t-shirts) and made our way to our seats.

The teams emerged for battle, Sale led (as so often) by Boris and Newcastle by their silver-suited alien captain. (I have no idea whether this joke is going to work or not. I’m actually quite intrigued to see if I can pull it off successfully as the report progresses. It depends largely on how familiar you are with 1950’s sci-fi movies, I suppose.)


Falcons had the best of the first few minutes after they kicked off and Sale failed to control the ball. Losing the first line out on their own throw didn’t help. Gradually, though, Sale started using their possession to march downfield, and looked very threatening ball-in-hand.

Addison looked as if he was determined to make a nuisance of himself and was denied an early try by a foot in touch after gathering a delicious kick from Cips. It wasn’t long, though, before a 5-metre line out became 5 points as Boris dived over from the back of the maul. The line-out had come from a penalty given when Sale’s pack demolished the Falcons on their own scrum.

In fact, the scrums went well all game. We weren’t plagued by restarts and having to watch the game turn into a bore-fest of collapse/reset/collapse/reset/free kick. Credit to both packs for showing that it can be done.

Cips missed the conversion but, a few minutes later, a tackle on Stringer without the ball gave a penalty chance in front of the posts. That went over to make it 8-0 to Sale.

Two minutes later, it was Falcons’ turn. They loaded the whole team into a 5-metre line out and the resulting 25-man maul turned into The Day Sale Stood Still as the silver-suited alien nipped round the blind side to score pretty much unopposed. (Was that obvious enough? No? Come on guys: “Latu Barada Nikto”? So, just me then. OK.) Delaney missed the conversion, 5-8.

As I said before, Addison was making a nuisance of himself and a huge hit on the full back Hammersley led ultimately to a Sale scrum around half-way and out right. Another solid scrum, and Stringer popped the ball to Addison, who made a neat side-step and then accelerated through a gap in the defence to take the play into the Falcons’ 22.

Addison’s attempted offload went loose (but backwards) and was eventually recovered by Ioane, who took the ball forward and passed to Cipriani. At this point, I have to say: watch this bit on the replay. It’s at about the 28:00 mark on the full match replay on the premiership rugby site. What we had was an example of the magic that Danny can produce in the space of half a second. It was “just” a shipping on of the ball to Haley but… watch it. Outrageously beautiful. Anyway, Haley passed it on to Sam James, who had time for a quick Paso Doble with Delaney before spinning round and falling down over the line.

Cips converted, 5-15.

Falcons’ second try was a carbon copy of the first: penalty, 5-metre line out, fill the line with the whole team and the home supporters, and over goes the friendly alien for his second. The penalty came from a tackle by Addison (again) that the ref deemed to have been a tip tackle—although the tackled player was partly culpable by jumping into it. Penalty only, no disciplinary action. Fair enough, but it does seem that the definition of a tip tackle is straying into “too easily given” territory.

Delaney missed the conversion again, 10-15.

That should have been it for half-time except that Sale did that irritating thing with a couple of seconds left on the clock of coughing the ball up and giving the oppo a chance of a late score. This time it was Socino who missed the relatively straightforward penalty.

At this point, I thought Sale were good for the lead. Maybe I’m wearing fluorescent yellow-tinted glasses, but I thought we showed more go-forward, better handling and greater penetration than Falcons (second half, not so much). That said, both sides contributed towards an entertaining half of rugby.


The second half, though, was a story of a hundred or so squeaky bums counting down the minutes. Did you know that Geordie minutes are longer than our minutes?

Haley had gone off at half time, so Danny moved to full back and Ford came on at fly half.

Things soon started to go the way that the average pessimistic Sale supporter expects: Temm broke through the defence and charged towards the line, only to be frustrated in the last yard by a wonderful tackle from Cipriani, who managed to reach round and dislodge the ball from Temm’s grasp, literally on the try line.

Soon, though, Falcons had another 5-metre line out. This time, they packed the entire population of Newcastle into the line and, of course the inevitable happened again.

Also seemingly inevitably, Delaney missed the conversion again.

15-15. Sounds familiar…

Ford kicked a penalty for a three point advantage, but that hardly seemed enough with 25 minutes still to go.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, it appeared that Tait had scored near the posts. The gods were looking kindly on Sale, though, as the replay showed that he had dropped the ball in the act of scoring.

And so it stayed for long, agonising minutes as the clock slowly ticked away, Sale bums squeaked frantically, hearts ascended into dry mouths. Quins were being stuffed: we had to win.

Eight minutes to go, still three points up, and the forwards produce an absolutely mahooooosive shove in the scrum to earn a penalty. Up steps Ford and points to the posts. No pressure, son. A hundred or so travelling fans forget to breathe.

Six points ahead.

Tick, tick, tick…

Time up. Penalty Sale. Oh YESSSSSSSS! Delirium all round. You’d have thought we’d won the league. Relief. Breathe. Cry a little. Cheer. Cheer loudly. Cheer even louder. The trip home’s going to be a good one.


And then, with the pleasantries between opponents completed, oh joy!, here they come. The whole damn lot of them make their way over to where we’re standing at the railing and there are cheers and handshakes and backslapping and tears and hugs and photos—lots of photos—and smiles and relief. Last week is forgiven.

 

 

And then the realisation that that was it. Danny’s gone. Tommy T’s gone. Tom Brady and Mark Easter. Cusiter. Ford and Macleod.

 

 

And Vadim.

Bye, big man. Bon chance, and thanks for everything.

So, one last time:

VADIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMMMMMMM!

Vadim leaving Kingston Park 

I wonder what happened to his boots?

 


 

[1] Who/whom is a pointless distinction and the sooner ‘whom’ is expunged from the language, the better. (The same goes for less/fewer. Pick one and kick out the other.)

[2] Yes, and alcohol. There was alcohol involved. Do I really need to state the bleedin’ obvious?

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