By Sarah Braide
October 22 2002

Two defeats in two games is not a good start for Sale in the Heineken Cup. Though Jim Mallinder said: "We are playing against sides with different styles and patterns to what we encounter in the Zurich Premiership", he would have been looking for better results than we have got. At the moment we have the nice handy excuse of the absence of Charlie Hodgson upon which we can blame the team's failure to perform. And the Sale team is far from settled, what with the arrival of Graeme Bond, the injuries of Charlie Hodgson, Iain Fullarton and Alex Sanderson and Jason's late withdrawal last Friday. Glasgow themselves came into last week's game with three losses in a row behind them and we can only hope that this bad run fires Sale up against Newcastle next weekend.

There was no reporter for the site at the match so no report this week but here is a link to the report on the official site:

Glasgow 24 Sale 16

Last week I set the question of where would finish in the Heineken Cup. That was before the two games but still 78% of people thought we would not make it past the quarters. 39% said we would get knocked out in the group stage which may well turn out to right, but that's not such a disaster. It is our first year in the competition, after all, and we've made a good start in the league.

Question: How will Sale finish in the European Cup?
Winner 6%
Runner-up 6%
Semis 9%
Quarters 39%
Group stage losers! 39%

		P	W	D	L	Pts
1	Bourgoin	2	2	0	0	4
2	Llanelli	2	1	0	1	2
3	Glasgow	2	1	0	1	2
4	Sale	2	0	0	2	0