Sale Sharks 46 London Wasps 34
By Whaley Shark
February 25 2012
Well, after my wildly over-optimistic prophecy for the Worcester match, I refused to predict last night’s score with my neighbours, and decided just to see what happened. As it turned out, I don’t think I’d have been very close last night either.....
We started with ambition, as Nick Macleod went for touch with a kickable penalty and, from the lineout, Andy Powell made a half break and we recycled the ball through Tom Brady and Nick Macleod to put Captain Sam over after just seven minutes. The gameplan may have been to play at pace, but we seemed to overdo it and gave Wasps three penalties in the next ten minutes, after putting a touch kick straight out, being penalised at a scrum, and then making a mess of another. So, with almost quarter of the game gone, we were 7-9 down, largely due to our own silliness.
A Sam Tuitupou break almost sent Rob Miller in on the right, but he was bundled into touch a few metres out. We nicked Wasps’ lineout ball, then lost possession, although the attempted clearance was charged down and Dwayne Peel was able to touch down in the left corner. We kept Wasps in the game though, as they ran a Peel box kick back, chipped over our defence and Andy Powell failed to control a bobbling ball in our 22. The Wasps centre Dominic Waldouck kicked ahead and comfortsably won the race to touch down. The conversion was wide, to leave us tied at 14-all. We then messed up the restart, but Wasps were penalised at the scrum centre and Nick Macleod slotted the kick to put our noses ahead again.
We carried on at a helter-skelter pace, but letting Wasps off the hook with errors- a tapped penalty, but then a missed touchfinder, a quick lineout, but then a penalty to the corner which went dead. However, we set Sam loose in midfield, he chipped over the defence and managed to touch down after Southwell, the Wasps full back, was unable to control the ball. The last score of the half was a Nick Macleod drop goal, following sustained forward pressure in the Wasps 22, which sent us in at half time 25-14 up.
The half time team talk was clearly ‘More of the same please’ and we carried on in the same vein. Tom Brady returned a Wasps bomb to half way but we were penalised at the ruck to take the score to 25-17. Never mind, on we go- Rob Miller and tom Brady linked well to run a deep Wasps kick to beyond half way, the Wasps left wing Jack Wallace was sin-binned, and we kicked the penalty to touch on the Wasps 22. Wasps were penalised again, we kicked to the corner, and Andy Powell struck from five metres out. Having established a pattern for the evening, we then gave Wasps another kickable penalty to keep them in touch, at 32-30. A Wasps knockon in our 22 gave us our next opportunity. Andy Powell broke away from the scrum and battered his way to our 10 metre line, some quick recycling took us into the Wasps 22, their stretched defence conceded a penalty, which we took quickly to send Johnny Leota over under the posts with about an hour gone. We then sent on massed substitutes. Our last try came from a turnover in midfield, we set up a maul, whipped the ball right, and Johnny Leota set up a 3-on-1 overlap, which Rob Miller exploited to score in the right corner. 46-20 must be enough, surely?
Well, not quite; whether it was the substitutions, or whether we eased off, I don’t know, but Wasps substitute Joe Simpson benefited from a penalty kick to the corner to sneak over and then, three minutes later, evaded our defence again and ran in from 40 metres to take the score to 46-34. That set up a slightly nervous last ten minutes as Wasps battered away in search of another try, which would give them two bonus points. Finally, as the clock ran down, they had a scrum close to our line, the ball squirted out and Cillian Willis got his hands on it to end the match.
What to make of that? Well, while we scored six tries and lost at Quins earlier this season, you have to go back almost four years to find a six try Sale win in the Premiership. I don’t know if we deliberately set out to play a loose game, on the grounds that ‘If you score five tries, we’ll score six’, but it was certainly entertaining stuff. For the players’ sakes, I hope it was a plan, otherwise there’ll be a week of beasting at defensive drills looming. Personally, I thought it was great, and so did those around me. More of the same please! Andy Powell was my man of the match, for a superhuman performance (you have to forgive the error in the first half), but I can’t think of one player who had a poor game, so a big ‘Well done’ to the whole team. Hopefully it’s a portent for the last few weeks of the season, as pitches dry and the weather warms....