Sale chief Dimes may go back to drawing board
SALE SHARKS WASPS STEVE Diamond admitted his Sale Sharks side have some serious reflecting to do after suffering their third defeat of the Gallagher Premiership season in a 31-13 loss to Wasps.
The home side had largely controlled proceedings in the first half-hour at the AJ Bell Stadium, leading through Jono Ross’ early try, but last year’s Premiership semi-finalists turned things around with two quickfire scores through Nizaam Caar and Josh Bassett.
Wasps went on to hammer home their advantage in the second period, adding two further scores and a bonus point to boot, whilst Sale could add only three points to their total from the boot of AJ MacGinty.
It means just four points have come from the Sharks’ first four games – including no bonus points – with the director of rugby fearing his side may have to go back to the drawing board after the underwhelming start.
“Quite a lot of things that we’ve done in training haven’t gone to plan and we’ve just got to re-evaluate what we’re doing,” said Diamond.
“It may be a little bit too difficult what we’re trying to do in the game for some of our players at the moment.
“We let the game get away from us in the last ten minutes of the first half, I felt we were playing pretty well until then. And then second-half I thought we were taught a lesson.
“We were camped on their line for several scrums and couldn’t get over the line. They come down and get there and they show power and class by scoring.”
The defeat was the first Sale had suffered at the hands of Wasps on home territory since their move to the AJ Bell in 2012, generally having their rivals’ number in the north in recent years.
But the Sharks have won only once in the Premiership since they beat Wasps at home back on April 6 this year.
And despite a relatively stingy campaign last year in terms of tries conceded – they shipped the fourth fewest in the league – Diamond believes that they were defensively vulnerable against the Midlanders.
“I just think we got beat up a little bit by the Wasps forwards,” he said.
“First-half I thought the breakdown was okay for us, but I thought in the scrum we were dominated.
“And that becomes a really important facet of the game if we can’t win our own ball.”