Calle Rivas magic seals bonus point
AMELIANO Calle Rivas’s perfectlyweighted dink-chip bounced neatly for centre John Leota to beat Darlington fullback Chris McTurk to seal a crucial bonuspoint win.
In near-perfect conditions at Heywood Road, Calle Rivas produced an outstanding play-making performance, despite the Sale pack being on the back foot in the first half, sealing back-to-back wins for the home side since October.
The four-try victory is Sale’s fourth win in their last seven fixtures. It also completes a season’s double over Mowden Park and jumps the reigning National 2 North champions into mid-table.
Sale FC director of rugby Jonathan Keep told
The Rugby Paper: “I’m happy, we came out with a real clinical game-plan and executed it. Nine times out of 10, if you stick to your plan you get what you deserve. After a shaky start, we made the right decisions in their 22 and came away with a win.
“When we kicked, we aimed for grass to keep them deep and we knew they’d attack, so we made sure our line-chasing and line-speed was there to make the early tackle.”
Sale were quick from the off and, after a break from blindside Andrew Hughes, were on the edge of Darlington’s 22 when Calle Rivas got a drop-goal in the face of the sun.
Darlington then had an edge. A break by lock Joe Craggs put the away side deep in Sale territory, with the ball whipped cross-field to centre Leota and then open-side Matthew Heaton, who out-gassed Calle Rivas to score in the corner.
Three minutes later from a line-out, Mowden Park whipped the ball wide, with quick-hands, allowing wing Shaun McCartney to dive over in the corner.
No.8 Ryan Parkinson then caught DMP out as he scored in the corner, while a catch-and-drive from a lineout was finished by lock Matt Posthethwaite.
Any hope of a Mowden Park comeback was doused when Chris McTurk was sin-binned on 42 minutes.
Shortly after, wing Paolo Odogwu produced a sprint finish under the posts before Leota grabbed the bonus point.
Park performed a late fightback after Sale prop Dan Birchall was sinbinned on 73 minutes.
Scrum-half Matt Dudman’s quick tap-penalty allowed him to sneak past his opposite number to score.
Replacement Simon Uzokwe went over in the final play to salvage a useful bonus point.
DMP coach Danny Brown said: “It’s really frustrating because we started really well.
“We didn’t deal with the ref ’s interpretation of a lot of things and, unless you do that, it will pass you by.
“We let Sale use their driving maul and were our own worst enemy.”