Cliff: Sharks can take vital points on their travels
WILL Cliff says his Sale team-mates can’t wait to bounce back from defeat to Saracens as they prepare for Saturday’s trip to Bath.
The Sharks’ Premiership momentum was checked by the European champions, who ground out a hard-fought 13-3 win at the AJ Bell Stadium last Friday.
Sale now have testing back-to-back assignments on the road with Saturday’s trip to the Rec followed seven days later by a visit to Northampton.
But with seven games of the season remaining, the scrum-half believes there are still plenty of reasons for optimism.
“We had achieved five out of six wins in the league going into the Saracens match and I think we’re still in a good place,” Cliff told the Sale Sharks website.
“Our target remains the same – to try and push for that top six/top four. If we can keep working hard in training and keep doing what we’re doing then I believe – and all the other lads do too – that we can push on and achieve things.
“We’ve shown that we can compete with top teams like Saracens, now we want to be getting wins against them – especially here at the AJ Bell.
“We’ve got two tough away fixtures coming up at Bath and then Northampton, but we can be confident.
“There are also lads like AJ MacGinty and Tom Curry who are not far away from returning from injury and who will push the competition for places up another level.
“They are all top players and the more competition for places you have, the better.”
Reflecting on last Friday’s setback, Cliff said the Sharks needed to learn the lessons from what was a frustrating night at the AJ Bell Stadium.
Though looking a potent threat in attack, Sale’s momentum was checked by a number of uncharacteristic errors, both in handling and at the breakdown.
And Cliff believes the way Saracens both retained possession and built up pressure could serve as a template for the Sharks going forward.
“To break a side like Saracens down you’ve just got to go through more phases and if you do that and make more errors it’s more noticeable because once they get the ball they tend to look after it so well,” he added.
“The feeling in our dressing room afterwards was one of disappointment. You saw in a few of our strike-plays that we looked quite sharp in attack, so if we could have kept hold of the ball for longer we could have got some joy.
“I think you saw two good defences out there – one possible error from us in defence led to their try and, in effect, that was the game.”