Ragged return as error-strewn Sharks are slain at the Stoop
ONE of the critical factors in this season’s Premiership end-game is going to be who hits the ground running fastest after the fivemonth lockdown.
It was no contest in this damp squib of a season restart, with mid-table Harlequins outplaying a second-placed Sale side that tripped itself up at every turn.
This included failing to launch Manu Tuilagi, the club’s new star signing, on a single well-timed charge.
After the preliminaries in which the teams stood together in silence to salute the NHS, and then signified their anti-racism stance with the Harlequins players kneeling and their Sale counterparts – some kneeling, most standing – all wearing “Rugby against Racism” t-shirts, the match got underway with the visitors conceding a rash of penalties.
Sale consistently fell foul of the new breakdown interpretations, and their indiscipline meant they trailed from the start, and stayed in arrears for the duration.
The Sale penalty count, in double figures by halftime and 19 at full-time, gradually sapped the energy from their disjointed pack. At the same time, with the Harlequins half-back pairing of Martin Landajo and Marcus Smith playing with much greater control and tactical kicking nous than their Springbok counterparts, Faf de Klerk and Robert du Preez, they were rarely in danger.
With Sale’s early misdemeanours punished by the flawless goal-kicking of Smith, Harlequins led 9-0 just after the half-hour. They might have gone further ahead had a blistering 35-metre break by Nathan Earle, in his first game after 16 months out with a knee injury, been finished off.
However, Quins also had a let-off before half-time when Robert du Preez missed a penalty from in front of the posts.
Early in the second half we were given a brief glimpse of Sale’s pre-coronavirus attacking prowess when they set up a catchThis and-drive on a Lood de Jager lineout before scoring the best try of the match.
It started with de Klerk passing short to Sam Hill, and then came the precision, with Tuilagi making a telling decoy run, and Robert du Preez and Simon Hammersley putting Byron McGuigan over in the corner.
When Robert du Preez kicked the conversion from the touchline the Harlequins lead was slashed to 9-7 – before the Sharks’ discipline disappeared again.
time it took the form of a suicidal du Preez cross-kick in his own 22 aimed at Marland Yarde, but picked off by Mike Brown. Although the veteran Quins full-back lost his footing just short of the line, and Alex Dombrandt was held up, it led to Hammersley being sin-binned for diving-in offside.
When Quins kicked for the corner, and their failsafe lock Stephan Lewies delivered the lineout ball on a platter, hooker Scott Baldwin drilled over from the drive.
Smith’s conversion gave the home side a 16-7 lead with the final quarter left to play, and although an AJ McGinty penalty cut the Sale deficit to six points with ten minutes remaining, there was no great escape – and nor did a haphazard Sale outfit deserve one.
Instead, Sale, who had eight South Africans in their starting line-up, were lucky to get a losing bonus point, and unless they beat Exeter at the AJ Bell next weekend they could slip out of contention.