Sale’s power pack expose fault lines in Leicester’s porous defence

It was not pretty but no one at Sale will care. Tenacity and guts carried Steve Diamond’s team to a third successive Premiership win over Leicester, whose fluctuating form and poor defence must be a mighty concern for Richard Cockerill.

Diamond and Cockerill had fierce tussles when rival hookers and the nature of their match-ups as coaches has not changed now they are in charge of Sale and Leicester. Sale outscored Leicester by four tries to three and won the battle up front as well.

Victory lifts them into fifth place after an indifferent start to the season that has brought another home win over Harlequins but also defeat here by Gloucester. As for Leicester, regular watchers departed shaking their heads at a performance that was way below the consistency demanded by the bestsupported club in the Premiership.

Last week the Tigers toppled Bath 34-14 yet here they looked plodders enlivened only by a decent patch in the first half, which brought a 17-7 lead thanks to two tries from Peter Betham.

Sale’s forwards are a match for anyone here and it was another good afternoon for Josh Beaumont, the Sale captain, prop Ross Harrison and unsung flanker-hooker Cameron Neild.

It was the Sale pack who provided the winning try in the 57th minute following a series of driving mauls. The finisher at the bottom of the ruck was substitute prop Halani Aulika, whose second-half stint earned him a touchdown, a stint in the sin-bin and a very sore shoulder following a heavy tackle.

However, despite such a win over heavyweight opposition, it still did not stop Diamond criticising referee Craig Maxwell-Keys, who is in his third season as a professional official and was taking charge of his 22nd Premiership game. Diamond was furious that Sale’s supposedly solid scrum was penalised continually and said they have not given away a penalty on their own ball for two years. He insisted he would have made the same remarks even if his team had lost.

“Statistically we have had the best scrum in the competition for the last two years,” he said. “We have not lost a ball on our put-in for two years and we give five penalties away on the trot on our put-in. It’s unheard of. A rookie performance from the kid referee.”

Diamond also claimed that his team should have gained a penalty try after Ben Youngs had deliberately stopped a blindside attack by slapping the ball down. Maxwell-Keys and his assistants did not penalise Youngs and the referee blew up for half-time immediately, but the way Youngs ran off, like a schoolboy who had nicked a cake from the kitchen, he looked thoroughly guilty and mightily relieved.

Cockerill was more sanguine about the refereeing, believing there had been a number of marginal decisions. Leicester’s biggest gripe must have been Sale’s second try, when Paolo Odogwu raced through off a pass from Beaumont following a line-out throw that looked forward. Cockerill shrugged his shoulders when questioned on that call but was more forthcoming about the state of Leicester’s porous defence, which has now leaked 30 points three times this season. “If you have poor execution, cough up the ball and give away soft tries you end up on the wrong end of the result,” he said. “On a couple of occasions we were easy to score against.”