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By IrishShark
#21094
Stet wrote:
Fri Nov 27, 2020 9:29 pm
This is so bad, it’s embarrassing. A line out on their line and we throw long.
Why isn’t Diamond giving them a bollicking - they certainly deserve one.
What is it with this aimless kicking???
We actually didn't throw long the jumpers didn't jump in time. A right cock up.
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By Alex
#21095
Surprised they didn't check the offside from the kick considering how big of a decision it was.

We didn't deserve to win tonight but it doesn't make it any less gutting :punch:
By Surbiton_Shark
#21098
Lineout execution is still inconsistent- kills us really
Silly penalties conceded- ticked that box well

Whoever came up the the tactic to use Van Rensburg at first receiver for the first half half needs a series talking to

Whoever
decided during the dire kicking fest when it was fairly obvious our backs could do damage but let’s continue kicking needs a talking to

Newcastle won’t be easy for any side to beat at home but we really played completely into their hands......

In games like this Cliff really seems better as a 9
Last edited by Surbiton_Shark on Fri Nov 27, 2020 10:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
By DavenportSharky
#21099
Dreadful match. I don’t think Newcastle are any great shakes from a talent perspective. You look at their lineup and ours and you would think we should be favourites to win that. However they have not lost in over a year and we had too many facets of our game not firing. If they had started the match with Joel Hodgson then it may not have been so close. If Dimes was behind the kick returns then he needs to wonder when is it time to change tactics. The second half performance was marginally better and in the end the penalty count was pretty equal. It must be a very different experience to running out at Ellis Park but the Saffers need to get in to gear on freezing Fridays.
If there is a lineout guru out there then they should spend whatever to get him in. It’s particularly frustrating having scored the good try and being within a minute of the end. Sale have never been good at closing games out and tonight was a classic. Last season the hitting the post against Gloucester in the last minute haunted us at the end of the season. I wonder if we might be reflecting on tonight in the Spring in similar fashion.
By W4rriorz1980
#21100
Was rooting for you guys & had you down for a 7 point win in the Superbru prediction league! Plus the fact I have family up your neck of the woods who are Sale fans who are friends with the owner of Printerland.

Not a game you would introduce a potential new fan to.A game for the purists! As a Warriors fan we've played in many games like this!

But imho as a neutral you were rudderless without Jono Ross.I would've expected Faf to step up in his absence & give you guys some direction but he seemed more interested in having a running battle with Mickey Young.

Just an off day for you guys,you won't be that bad again I'm sure.
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By stevene
#21102
Thoughts from me from last night's horrific game and performance from Sale:

Control
We wont win anything with the squad we have without basic control. That involves having a functioning lineout, not conceding double figure penalties in a first half or (for the second week running) having penalties reversed (this time a 3 point opportunity given away) for petulant behaviour. Ball control was again poor. The coaches and players need to sort this out.

Fly half
Last night solidified for me the issue with AJM at 10. He is a good player and 100% effort. His goal kicking is excellent. However every time he plays we look more disjointed in our play than when RDP plays. RDP challenges the defence of the opposition in ways that AJM doesnt. He gets our centres (which are critical to our backline play) playing. The quandry is RDP is so hot and cold kicking wise. I get that but time to rotate here and get RDP in at 10 for a couple of weeks.

Game plan
Why did we play to Falcons strengths? I get we thought we could take them in an arm wrestle but surely we could have taken them with a more nuanced game plan. A team coached by Richards and Easter is going to be good at the arm wrestle. I saw us have an advantage in the backs when looking at the line out on a 4g pitch which means its made for running rugby FFS! I get we are Sale, we have big South Africans but drop the ego driven we can beat anyone in an arm wrestle attitude.

Scrum
Our scrum should be strength but it seems like a lottery. WGJ is fit clearly and Coenie is struggling in the tight. Morozov is a good ball carrier so lets start WGJ at 3, get some solidity and have Coenie / JCW on the bench. Second week in a row this has happened. Christ Dimes was whining about WGJ not being selected by Wales 3 weeks ago but he is our 3rd choice TH based on his selections at the moment and its not like we are mullering everyone in the scrum.

Overall
Its one loss but equally its more of same regardless of the result vs Saints and Falcons. Its error strewn, 1D rugby which isnt much better than we were playing 2 seasons ago. at least then we were playing to our potential.
ale shark, Alex, W4rriorz1980 and 1 others liked this
By Clutch
#21103
Spot on as usual.

To be fair AJ has improved out of hand in terms of getting backs going. His short range passing was woeful but seems to have improved.

You may be right about RDP, but I think the half back partner is a bigger factor. Rob has Cliff who just gives him the ball. With Faf on the pitch Faf is in charge of everything and we play though him.
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By Lord Elpus
#21105
That's a good summary to which I'd add - Faf is our barometer. Last night he was poor and so were we.

I don't know that WGJ is obviously fit. If he is then there's something going on off the field.

Where is Sam Hill? He must be kicking himself black and blue for coming to Sale - although the money must be a comfort.

If B. Curry got a bad one last night then we are really struggling in the back row.

One other thing - the late Budgies score stemmed from a scrum penalty against JCW when we had a dominant scrum going forward. It was on the far side from the camera so we haven't seen what he did but if he committed an obvious penalty offence going forward in front of the AR then he need a severe bollocking.

I hope Dimes is still fining players for giving away penalties - perhaps he should increase the amount substantially.
By LJK
#21106
I left it 12 hours before commenting but still as angry and frustrated now. How can a team which bar one, was identical to that played with some flair and ultimate success last week, look so pathetic this. Now admittedly the missing person was Jono Ross, but if the team 'bond' we hear so much about at Sale is as strong as made out, and with so many international players on the pitch, we shouldn't be missing even the influential captain.
But the performance seemed flat from the start, perhaps witnessed by the commentators not having to apologise for 'bad' language at scrum time, as a sign that the grit wasn't present as often before. A couple of times they showed Faf clapping his hands to try and gee people up, but it looked a bit half hearted.
Yes, Newcastle played us well, but where was plan B ? No-one seemed to have any ideas
Last week we took most if not all the few chances that Saints offered us in their 22, and scored, this week the 'yips' from the past showed up again with dropped ball and what looked like panic playing.
The few players that seemed to have a bit of spark were AJ who chased a few of the kick tennis stuff, Hammersley and the 'below the radar' work of Wiese, including his bullocking try. Denny has been a shadow of his glory days a couple of years back and Luke James was anonymous.
Well played Newcastle, and I hope they go on and do well and confound the press who have them down as relegation fodder. We need a decent performance and win against Irish next, or the concerns will spread, and the pre season odds for Sale to be top of the league look far fetched indeed.
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By Flumpty
#21111
Enters room and announces

Cough, cough, ahem.

We're 2nd in the table today.

Leaves room yo cacophony of cat calls.
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By Flumpty
#21116
Olyy wrote:
Sat Nov 28, 2020 12:58 pm
Flumpty wrote:
Sat Nov 28, 2020 12:36 pm
Enters room and announces

Cough, cough, ahem.
You been partying at any halls of residence recently?
Bat Gazpacho anyone ?
By stevene
#21117
Clutch wrote:
Sat Nov 28, 2020 10:09 am
Spot on as usual.

To be fair AJ has improved out of hand in terms of getting backs going. His short range passing was woeful but seems to have improved.

You may be right about RDP, but I think the half back partner is a bigger factor. Rob has Cliff who just gives him the ball. With Faf on the pitch Faf is in charge of everything and we play though him.
I get what you are saying. however you can equally say that Cliff might give RDP better service but equally defences know who is the playmaker. equally with faf at 9 AJM at 10 AJ's distribution doesnt set the world on fire therefore we are looking for line busts from RJVR (who was anonymous last night) and inspiration from Faf. I just think RDP has a flatter, harder pass which gives centres better running lines. AJ style of distribution allows defences to move and fade outside (hence why his dummy led to his try vs saints). It also isnt variable enough or reactive to whats in front of him.

If we want a limited gameplan then Cliff/ AJM is the way to go. Cliff's service is superb. AJM tackles, covers, is brave over the ball and kicks his goals.

One thing I would mention for anyone playing nine at the moment it must be a nightmare as the ball control at the ruck and ball from the lineout is awful.

I suspect next game we will see RDP at 10 and we will look better ball in hand but leave 9-12 on the pitch with his wonky place kicking.
By Clutch
#21123
Agree with that Stevene.

Olly. Great game but Mickey Mouse rugby to be honest. We are too good defensively for games like that.
By DavenportSharky
#21127
One factor that I don’t think anyone has mentioned is post viral effect. Faf for instance has said in interview how shattered he was with COVID. Post viral aesthenia is well recognised with influenza, persists for weeks and seems to have occurred with COVID patients too. Most of our senior squad tested positive and that is far more than any other Premiership squad. At elite athlete level even minor effects can make the difference between normal performance and being substandard. I’m not making excuses for them and it won’t be the only factor but I think it could be an issue.
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By Lord Elpus
#21130
Surely post-viral fatigue would show up on the performance monitors they wear? I thought Dimes was too slow in replacing faf by Wilf.
By LJK
#21135
Post Covid fatigue is possible I guess, but then how do you explain such a gritty and often skilled performance in the game a week earlier?
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By ageinghoody
#21148
Well, it was certainly dire, from both sides, but I'm not quite ready yet to take that one game as an indicator for the whole season.

For me AJM was the best player on our side, bearing in mind that I wouldn't have a clue if a forward did better!
By FarnhamShark
#21177
My big worry is that this was another game where Sale were far less than the sum of their parts. The vast majority of our squad are internationals or on the fringe of international selection, yet they still managed to produce a performance like that, and not for the first time. I can only attribute that to something going horribly wrong with the coaching (in a football team they'd be talking about the manager having "lost the dressing room").
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By Flumpty
#21186
Maybe, perhaps, possibly - we're not giving Dean Richards and Nick Easter enough credit for working out what the Budgies needed to do to grind out a result.
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By HR1861
#21192
Let's bear in mind also, that Harlequins ran Saints ragged, yet we struggled. Saints are a very poor side and will be in the relegation dog fight.
Maybe we're just not as good as we like to think, and some of the players are believing their own press.
We need a leader who can see us through these rocky patches, someone like Flood or Gopperth. We have nobody in that mould.
Faf is too much of a loose cannon, Jono gets the ref's backs up, so who's going to step forward?
Nobody is jumping out to take up that role.
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By Lord Elpus
#21196
Flumpty wrote:
Mon Nov 30, 2020 1:50 pm
Maybe, perhaps, possibly - we're not giving Dean Richards and Nick Easter enough credit for working out what the Budgies needed to do to grind out a result.
I'm not so sure Richards & Easter planned the last minute try.

The Budgies always play the same way against us - we should have been expecting the arm-wrestle.
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By Major Bloodnok
#21197
Penalties. We've become less of a threat since we started racking up a dozen or more penalties every game. No continuity, no momentum, no real threat. Discipline should now be the top priority for fixing.
ageinghoody and 1 others liked this
By ageinghoody
#21203
Major Bloodnok wrote:
Mon Nov 30, 2020 2:46 pm
Penalties. We've become less of a threat since we started racking up a dozen or more penalties every game. No continuity, no momentum, no real threat. Discipline should now be the top priority for fixing.
With special attention to those given away instead of preparing to take the one we'd just been awarded!

If there really are fines for giving away penalties then causing a reversal should cost double!

For the avoidance of doubt, I applaud WB for that decision, and it should happen more often.
By Olyy
#21414
Do you think the Sale and Newcastle players get together before our "derbies" and agree to play a stinker?
Falcons looks great against Wasps, so far, and I struggle to think of a Sale vs Newcastle game that wasn't a chore to watch
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By poyntonshark
#21435
I was thinking similar. I wouldn't go so far as to say they looked great, but they were trying to play a hell of a lot more rugby than against us and deserved their win. Seemed a funny game to me, both sides trying to play, some good tries scored but I didn't feel terribly entertained. I don't really understand why.
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By Lord Elpus
#21517
The Budgies always play the same way against us and it usually works so why would they change? It's up to our coaches to do some work and come up with a counter plan. There's no point in continuing with Plan A when it hasn't worked in the past.
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