By StalyShark
#42263
Defence good as usual, nothing flashy elsewhere but we seem to play just in fits and starts. Ford would be looking to build the pressure we create into sustained dominance.
By Olyy
#42264
Good win,

Off the boil in the second half, but not the capitulation we've seen in the past, and we actually converted multiple chances in the first half which is a hhuuggee improvement

Postlethwaite threw himself around when he came off the bench, good to see
By RugbyMarvel
#42265
None of the attacking intensity we brought in the first half was seen in the second. Unsure whether that was because we looked to kick more or because we just lost the rhythm, probably a bit of both. I enjoyed us putting our big carriers into space more, a massive improvement. Jean Luc Du Preez was my man of the match.

Defensively we are monstrous and some serious hits went in. Postlewaite put in some good physicality but the lineout did suffer when Lood went off. We kept Barbeary as quiet as we could (he still made some good metres). Hats off to Tom Willis who I think is actually the more rounded 8, who threw DDP back with a beautiful hand off. Any chance he fancies a move up to Manchester?…

A generally good performance from us and I’m only disappointed that we didn’t really put Wasps to the sword when we had the wind behind us and had the opportunity to do so. The big thing is we got 5 points and managed to keep Wasps to 0.

Jono Ross probably the played his best game in a while. Didn’t give away too many pens (if any), spoke to the ref well and made some big tackles

Rodd was outstanding also. All over the pitch whilst being good at set piece.

Got to remember that we have Tom Curry, Akker, Quirke / Faf and Tuilagi who would have all likely have been involved, so a lot to be optimistic about.
By Streatham Shark
#42266
I'd have had one of the twins MOTM, immense showing. Faded in the second half, but at least didn't capitulate, and I thought some of the turnovers they got were quite odd but equally we still give away stupid penalties.

The defence is phenomenal, and for the first time this season it felt like there were glimpses of what the team can do in attack, with the supporting lines being half a second short on a few occasions. Lots to work on, but equally lots of promise, here's hoping everything coheres as the year progresses
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By Clutch
#42268
JLDP clear mom for me. AJ did some v nice stuff but was responsible for many turnovers.

Attack looked good and the structure looked good first half. More evidence that it’s personnel than coaching. When Rohan went off we had to threat in the backline whatsoever. I understand why we take him off but he creates space for AJ.

Bench just doesn’t pose the same threat which makes it hard to sustain an 80 min performance.

Hammersley didn’t come on at all I don’t think.
By RugbyMarvel
#42269
Beardedshark wrote:
Sat Jan 01, 2022 3:57 pm
Biggest concern for me was the way the line out fell apart in the second half. Apart from that pretty good
I do sometimes think that if we play JL Du Preez at lock, a rangier blindside could be a good move. However conversely I think JL Du Preez at 6 with Beaumont or JPDP partnering Lood would work effectively. Feel that top teams tend to have three 6’5”+ forwards in a pack who can all be lifted effectively
By Clutch
#42270
Poss isn’t great in the lineout but l we have enough decent jumpers and we could have thrown long. Not like not straight exists anymore!!
Every game one aspect of the set piece goes to pot.
By RugbyMarvel
#42271
Clutch wrote:
Sat Jan 01, 2022 4:01 pm
Attack looked good and the structure looked good first half. More evidence that it’s personnel than coaching. When Rohan went off we had to threat in the backline whatsoever. I understand why we take him off but he creates space for AJ.
When we bring off our heavier carrying twelves and bring on / move a playmaker at 12, we do tend to still try to utilise them on the crash ball. That’s either a coaching issue or a lack of on field nous to change the picture somewhat.

I really enjoy RDP at 13. Think he’s become very effective and does offer some power and pace
By Olyy
#42272
Clutch wrote:
Sat Jan 01, 2022 4:01 pm
Hammersley didn’t come on at all I don’t think.
Roebuck was on the bench, according to the pre-match graphic - guessing Covid related (AJ mentioned post-game that it's disrupting preparations as they don't even know who'll be at training each day with guys dropping out)
By Clutch
#42273
To be honest it went to pot when Warr came on as well. Cliff was a bit erratic but was good most of 1st half generating quick ball.

You can’t have 2 play making centres really unless they offer something else. I agree RDP has been decent but there’s a huge issue if we prefer a 10 shoehorned into 13 instead of James.
By RugbyMarvel
#42274
Clutch wrote:
Sat Jan 01, 2022 4:15 pm
You can’t have 2 play making centres really unless they offer something else. I agree RDP has been decent but there’s a huge issue if we prefer a 10 shoehorned into 13 instead of James.
Agree that it’s an issue that RDP is playing better than Sam James at 13, but think we need to have a playmaker there because we don’t have one at 12 or 15.

Makes me think that we need a top level 15 who can offer a bit of a gas but also a playmaking option, then look at a pacey 13 (in the Marchant mould).
By Clutch
#42275
We need to sign or develop a lot of 3/4s to be honest. Yarde took his try well enough but back 3 offer nothing in attack.

With our up front dominance a class backline would have but 40 plus on them.

Having said that Covid hasn’t helped so this has to be chalked down to a decent win with some clear improvements in attack. Which was down to AJ who has been poor of late, hitting some form.

Hopefully we can kick on like we did last year. Massive game next week.
User avatar
By Flumpty
#42290
Olyy wrote:
Sat Jan 01, 2022 2:16 pm

Be interesting to see what Lood was trying to raise with the referee - he refused to go to the TMO because we were already on a penalty but looked like he was saying one of the wasps players hit him

Edit: think it was a neckroll
He wasn't to happy that a Wasps player (or two) were trying to seperate his head from his body.
By LJK
#42291
Watched on TV today and I commented early on that the stadium PA guy seemed to be missing with all the usual nonsense of trying to create an atmosphere, and indeed the crowd seemed largely quiet too, given how well Sale were doing. So, given the comments above, maybe BT had their mics. turned down to compensate. No-one on here as regular supporters seem to think that the volume of music and trumpet fanfares adds anything...quite the reverse. So why, despite so many comments do the club persist with this? Kayleigh has said previously it would be toned down, but apparently not much, if at all. Please review this again SS.
Impressive performances from many, and it was good to see the Cliff/AJ combo working well enough. Cliff is often compared negatively to our other SHs, but he didn't do much wrong today, despite not having been in the squad for months.
The Du Preez twins are something else, having seemingly calmed down from their yellow card days earlier in their time with us. They rarely seem to get subbed so presumably the coaches feel their energy levels remain strong for 80 mins. Really hope Sale can keep them for the forseeable future.
Let's hope that SS get a run of played games with a high % of wins, starting with Bristol away next week.
By HR1861
#42293
Couldn’t agree more with LJK.
The twins were awesome. Where would we be without them - get them (and Rob if necessary) signed up asap on long term deals.
By Carlos
#42294
It's been mentioned above, but I'm really liking how good we are looking with RDP at 13.

Raf; Ford; RJVR/Manu; RDP; LJ looks like a decent back spine for the next couple of years if we can get some real gas on either side.
By DavenportSharky
#42297
At the start we looked like a team who had not played for 3 weeks but quite quickly settled after their try. Shame we also finally conceded again at the death. Great to beat Wasps yet again but this was far from brilliant with some atrocious passing and catching. I thought Will was pedestrian. He was slow to the breakdown and delays a crucial split second. Warr played the great chip over their defensive line a tactic seriously underused. Both twins were extraordinary and I’ve no idea why Kay gave it to AJ.
I actually thought the music volume was down a notch. No chest vibration today and thank God the smoke screen fireworks were replaced by tamer affairs. The queues outside the East stand were unprecedented but the queues at the West stand did move quickly. Most people had their Covid pass glimpsed at. Good attendance but little atmosphere. Very little mask wearing. The description of brass band was sadly wide of the mark for the scruffy bunch outside the West stand. Sousaphones, trumpets, saxophones etc are part of an American jazz set up which this clearly was. The four season ticket holders who play for Stretford Brass Band await your recall.
We have to remember just how many stars Wasps were missing. I thought Simon McIntyre did well with perhaps a point to prove. Excellent playing conditions for January and the strong wind predicted never really materialised. Interesting how many people now use the short cut behind the East stand coming out near the Ship Canal bridge. An excellent day for a brisk walk back to the car.
Bristol can’t seem to buy a win but it will still be tough at Ashton Gate unless we cut out the errors and finish clinically in the red zone.
PappjeShark liked this
By Van Cannonball
#42298
Yes, Bristol have run Exeter and Leicester close recently so will be much tougher than the table suggests. Looking at today’s team sheet looks like they have most of the big names back now.
User avatar
By poyntonshark
#42299
Yes we do need to consider the horrendous injury list at Wasps, but they did beat London Irish last week, one of the leagues 'form' teams of late. Possibly another game won by our defence, we gave them very few chances to get attacks moving. They did play into our hands somewhat, by constantly trying to pick and go around the fringes despite us driving them backwards most times. They looked more dangerous attacking from their 22 than from ours.
We were much better in attack than of late, more varied and more accurate, though still plenty of room for improvement. Still too many unforced errors, poor passes, knock-ons and losing possession in contact. The twins were excellent but also conceded a few penalties getting isolated and holding on. Considering we haven't played for 3 weeks we should be happy with the result and satisfied with the performance.AJ back to something like top form made a huge difference to the backs.
User avatar
By SSR
#42300
I am not sure what my views are after thinking about the match for a bit. I feel basically
a bit disappointed with our performance in a number of ways. I shouldn't as I thought our basic defense was excellent but we fail to capitalise on our good play.
Wasps put out a strong side ( despite their injuries ) and we coped with them despite
having problems putting Barbeary on the floor ( very impressed by him ).
There is always a moment when we are ahead that I feel that we will stop playing and lose
the match. Usually coincides with the bench substitutions. Our lineout is still a problem,
without the banker of throwing to Lood, we are easy to compete against. On a side
note, why did we not compete against their front lineout ball ?
Yesterday we looked ( unsurprisingly ) rusty and poor handling caused panic. We also
seemed unwilling or unable to take advantage of any momentum we had. Too slow to
do anything when there was space to move it fast. We missed Faf and Raffi near the line.
The old problem of lack of penetration in the backs was there to be seen. Breaks ( mainly
by rampaging forwards ) come to nowt as speculative passes are thrown to where
supporting players should be ( but aren't ). Our only penetration in the backs is through
little kicks through.
There was one glorious opportunity in the second half to score that summed it all up
for me. We had the ball under their posts and passed it out wide only for
it to peter(?) out by being smothered by their covering defence as we were too slow to
make any progress.
I don't want to denigrate the effort we showed in the face of a good side that we did not
allow to play. This is basically why I feel disappointed.
We do the groundwork but fail to take advantage. We make mistakes and lack that bit
of class to open up a struggling defence. I think as most people do, we lack speed and
handling.
The forwards put in a great shift and won the match for us, the backs were a
bit meh.
I am happy we won the match, but just feel we could have done better ( so could Wasps ).
By Northshark
#42302
Interesting game. Our style of play is now an outlier in the league with little or no attempt to move the ball wide early. This is of course understandable as we do not have pace out wide but it will be interesting to see how this more traditional game style does in 2022.
There were many positive performances but AJ was MOM by a country mile. He was the most influential player on the pitch: Change of direction for Yarde's try ; left-footed kick from our own half which led to BC's try; twice handling after Warr's excellent chip over the defence only for Ross , sacrilegiously,to hold on with BmcG free outside for a walk-in and of course , often overlooked , his prodigious defence with 13 tackles .
The performance was marred by the failure to take try scoring opportunities and i would not be confident away to Bristol who are now playing much better than recent results suggest.
Finally , the RDP experiment at 13 is proving to be effective although his defence ,understandable in many ways, is poor due more to positioning and decision making than a reluctance to tackle. I fear that Bristol will exploit this.
By Clutch
#42304
I have no problem with AJ being mom for the reasons you highlighted above but you’ve missed out the things he did wrong! He was responsible for a lot of the handling errors with some terrible passing. We should have put 40 plus past them. Not that that all falls on AJ of course.

RDP at 13 has to be a stop gap rather than part of the spine of the team! He’s a good versatile player but how many other teams is he getting in at 13? We’ve just been used to Sam James who has been v poor in attack for a long time.
By Surbiton_Shark
#42325
Good to start the year with a BP win - we don't often get those. Looked a good crowd so hopefully any newcomers may be encouraged to come again.

Interview with AJ was decent at the end - he said they left 14 points out there plus added training was a mixed bag with COVID and they tired a bit more than usual.

Though Jono is much improved with his discipline so good on him for fixing the issue - hope it continues.

Also like having Luke at 15 - runs with more purpose than Hammers and I hope he gets given a decent run in the shirt.

AJ was getting back to his better form ball in hand, brilliant having Cliff back - game control was good, his box kicking was excellent and he retains a lovely crisp accurate pass. Twins were just awesome as ever. Liked having RdP at 13 - he offers a threat ball in hand which Sam cannot so fair play to Sanderson and the management for giving him a go there.

Did we bomb a load of chances and give away was too many pens - yes - but this match seemed a step in the right direction. In saying that Wasps didn't have mess up on a few occasions when they got it wide which other teams may/would have turned into points. Scrum seemed a lot better but to counter than the lineout was schoolboy awful when Lood went off - for a pro side it's really quite abysmal that our basics can so shaky. Nice to see Dugdale perform well when Ben went off. I'm fairly unconvinced about Warr, TV said Quirke is out for a few weeks so we're absolutely knackered if Cliff gets injured.

Few work-ons. Someone needs to have a word with Lood about his penalty count. I've also notice more than once when forward moves break down normally Ben Curry is involved whether with the timing or pace of his pass so either hang onto it or practise a lot more - he can practise passing to Rohan who needs to remember to catch it first before setting off on a barnstorming run! Warr in various games has kicked out on the full more than once so another area of improvement.

We'll need everyone to be at their best versus Bristol - if we do that - we normally shut down their attack which is faltering anyhow - just need to take our chances when they arise, cut down on the un-necessary pens and stop the overcomplicated moves then we end up passing to fresh air
By Surbiton_Shark
#42326
ShawSharkRedemption wrote:
Sun Jan 02, 2022 7:05 am

There was one glorious opportunity in the second half to score that summed it all up
for me. We had the ball under their posts and passed it out wide only for
it to peter(?) out by being smothered by their covering defence as we were too slow to
make any progress.
This was really tough to watch. Other teams would have thrown it out wide but without Faff who would do that we ended up passing the ball to AJ who was stood still and just surrounded by forwards who again were all stood still.....no runners at all- we lost all momentum - not the first this that's happened this season - another work-on!
By Bronzbronx
#42328
Surbiton_Shark wrote:
Sun Jan 02, 2022 6:48 pm
ShawSharkRedemption wrote:
Sun Jan 02, 2022 7:05 am

There was one glorious opportunity in the second half to score that summed it all up
for me. We had the ball under their posts and passed it out wide only for
it to peter(?) out by being smothered by their covering defence as we were too slow to
make any progress.
This was really tough to watch. Other teams would have thrown it out wide but without Faff who would do that we ended up passing the ball to AJ who was stood still and just surrounded by forwards who again were all stood still.....no runners at all- we lost all momentum - not the first this that's happened this season - another work-on!
Agreed, there was a chance where Van Rensburg made a break and another where AJ chipped one over. I was convinced both of these would end with a try but they fizzled out. My only real issue about the game really
By PappjeShark
#42433
A few thoughts from me to chip in. The BBC Sport match report said we showed no signs of rustiness from our enforced lay off. I disagree, I thought we showed plenty of rustiness and that’s one of the more heartening things about the win, that we overcame the disruption and got the BP win. The first half was really enjoyable, one of the best in a while. I looked at my watch after 10 mins and was staggered it’d only been that long, it was so engrossing I thought it was twice that. By half time I felt I’d really had my money’s worth! (Side note, it did cross my mind there was little to no TMO delay which might say something in itself).

The second half, less so. Annoying penalty count and a sense that we switched off after the BP. I wasn’t surprised Rohan was hooked after a couple of poor knock ons around our 22 in quick succession, no matter how much attacking threat he’d offered til then. If he’d put the same effort into catching the ball as he was to chewing his gum…..

I agree with Davenport re the atmosphere, it was disappointing. I kept hoping for the South Stand choir to really get going and spark others around the ground, but it seemed the NYE hangover was perhaps affecting everyone’s singing ability.

All told, given no Faf, Raffi, Tom C, Wiese, Akker, JPdP, Manu (not forgetting Beau), a 5 pt win with decent signs on the pitch feels a good outcome.
By ledzepsfr
#42476
I think we played OK.

No flare - Sale rarely do.
Didn't kill game off - Sale rarely do
Made it harder than it needed to be - Usual Sale

All in all, I'm happy with the general performance and the points.
I support Sale. They are never going to be consistant world beaters, but they are MY TEAM

And when the big event comes along, well why not? It's who wants it best over 80 minutes.


And a Happy New Year to all the posters/readers here from Western Australia.
By PappjeShark
#42506
Question I forgot to ask - can anyone confirm whether the lineout that led to Ben C’s disputed try should have been our throw-in following a 50:22? I could’ve sworn AJ nailed it from just the right place as did those around me, and he seemed to be appealing for it too. I half wondered if the try was going to get chalked off to bring it back for us to have the lineout!
By Olyy
#42508
It was carried(/passed) back over halfway before he kicked - same as with a kick from the 22, the phase has to originate in your own half for it to count - it was very marginal, only a metre or two in it, so AJ didn't realise

Shame because it was a great kick, though it worked out in the end
PappjeShark liked this
By PappjeShark
#42511
Cheers Olyy, that was the only thing I could think of for it not to have been an error. And yes, worked out ok in the end!
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