By Ali G
November 2 2004

After the sun of Sicily comes the chill of Cheshire. Amatori Catania came north with little real hope of progressing, and so it proved. Ali G gives us his thoughts on a game that, frankly, won't get on to any "most exciting" lists. The Curtains were flung open Sunday morning and the days weather announced itself, Fairly Mild – Dry with a hint of autumn in the air.  Perfect Rugby weather. Any notion that Catania would be hindered by the Stockport climate was firmly discarded. I could see no weather advantage to either team today unlike last week in Sicily where Sale suffered in the heat.

So to the game – watched by a crowd of 5276.

Umm! I am now struggling for something positive – no, not positive that’s the wrong word. Interesting is possibly what I’m looking for. Yes – the game lacked a certain interest.

It was a full 5 minutes before Sale got the ball in the Catania half. Things were slow to say the least, but the point tally started with a Mike Hercus penalty and from then on Sale were workman like in the task to be done. Points accumulated and our passage into the second round of this competition was never threatened.

To give you a flavour of the game one of the first half high points for the crowd was when a ball rolled off the roof of the Stockport Express Stand and hit some unfortunate on the head. Yes it was that interesting.

At this juncture I’ve included a link to the Telegraph for those interested in who scored what when stuff.

Telegraph Match Report - Point by Point etc.

First half ended with 4 tries being run in and a score line of 26 - 3

Second half was a continuation but the rugby did start to pace up a bit – but then it would slow down again – This was the feature of this game – SLOW, SLOW, QUICK, QUICK SLOW.

However it was very pleasing to see Chris Mayor fully fit again and very hungry. He got my Man of the Match vote

Mike Hercus had a bad day at the office with regards to conversions but there was no way in this contest that it mattered.

There was confusion in the Catania Team over substitutions which resulted in Slow Hand clapping from the crowd. The bench wanting to make changes and players on the pitch not wanting to come off. Much Italian gesturing arm waving – their journey through this competition was over for this season.

Officials – well a few people around me thought the French referee was too officious and pinichity. ( Red Carding in the last minute the Catanian Fly Half Barry Irving for saying too much – but I feel the game in general needs Ref’s to return to tough ways so I have no problem with this ) And at last Touch Judges that came off the imaginary wooden fence that runs around EP for the benefit of our usual ZP touch judges to sit on. Actually assisting the Ref and not afraid to step between players squaring up to each other. Something I feel is lacking in a lot of ZP games at EP.

Overall assessment in a simple statement. Sale won. 50 – 3   Aggregate Score over both legs  81 - 25