Leicester’s key men come up trumps
When Leicester needed their main men, Ben Youngs and George Ford delivered on a nervy afternoon for the Tigers in Manchester.
Two moments of Youngs magic in the second half made a try for Ford and another for Mike Williams as Leicester secured fifth place in the Premiership to gain one of six automatic places in the European Champions Cup.
Anything else would have been unthinkable for England’s biggest club but at times they did not help their cause. Leicester let Sale back into the match through a breakaway score from Marland Yarde after Ford had scored two minutes after the break followed by two penalty goals from the fly-half.
At one stage Leicester led 20-6 and they needed the try from Williams, the flanker supporting a break led by Youngs, Ford and Jonny May, to settle their frayed nerves.
Youngs was substituted after his part in Williams’ try, leaving Ford to add a dropped goal to complete a contribution of 20 points.
Jonah Holmes, who had scored Leicester’s first try in the 10th minute, grabbed the fourth in the last minute.
The precarious nature of Leicester’s plight beforehand was evident in the urgency of their supporters, who formed a noisy guard of honour at the stadium’s main entrance.
Leicester’s squad needed no reminding that they required at least a bonus point from the afternoon to confirm a place in the Champions Cup.
A brief revival in the spring has hidden – temporarily – that calamitous European campaign of only one win in six pool games.
It was evident from the early preseason games that Leicester lacked a pack able to deliver a much-vaunted backline the level of possession to dominate games.
It has been a scrap since September and this game was no different in spite of the scoreline and a victory by five tries to one.
Sale are a tenacious lot at home and they deserved a score, especially when Yarde galloped clear in the 53rd minute.
Ford admitted that recent home defeats by Northampton and Newcastle had stung the squad. “It’s been very hard but we’ve worked hard and are determined to put things right next season.”
Matt O’Connor, their director of rugby, was even more blunt, insisting he was not happy despite the win.
“We are about competing for trophies at this stage of the season and we are not doing that,” he said.
Overall, Sale had no arguments. Steve Diamond, their director of rugby, praised Leicester for the win.
“They beat us up front. The best team won,” he admitted.
The best action came early on in a match where the first drinks break came after six minutes.
It was a speedy half in which the ability of both teams to counter-attack gave the crowd, swelled by Leicester’s travelling group, good value. Sale had been led out by two players who are departing this summer, in Mike Haley and Will Addison.
However, the latter’s match lasted just nine minutes before a persistent leg injury flared up again.
Leicester struck immediately after Addison had gone off, forcing their way down the left through a neat handling move orchestrated by Ford and finishing in a neat pass by May to Holmes.
Ford converted Holmes’s try in the 10th minute but had to endure the sight of two penalty attempts, in the 28th minute and just before the interval, both striking an upright.
Each time the ball was cleared by Faf de Klerk, the Sale scrum-half, who showed why he has been one of the Premiership’s best overseas signings this season.
The South African not only scram-- Bath’s crushing win over London Irish means that they leapfrog Gloucester to claim the sixth and final European Champions Cup qualification spot. Leicester’s victory away to Sale eliminated any doubt about them also going through to the competition. bled the ball away after those kicks but also led the Sale attack in his typical allaction style, especially in the first 40 minutes.
His efforts should have been rewarded with a try two minutes before Ford’s second penalty at the end of the half.
However, Sale’s cutting attack ended in a likely try-scoring pass from AJ MacGinty being intercepted by Holmes. MacGinty, unlike Ford, had successfully kicked two first-half penalties to reward Sale for a full share of possession in a first half which ended with Leicester leading 7-6.
The Tigers’ nervy mood changed immediately after the interval. Youngs, whose season has been curtailed by a knee injury, danced clear from a ruck on halfway.
By the time the home defenders had reached the scurrying scrum-half he found Ford in space, who then had the gas to score under the posts for a try he converted for a 14-6 lead.
It triggered a period of Leicester excellence which should have brought a further try, but Ford’s pass bounced into touch rather into the arms of Holmes.
By now Ford had found his kicking sights and added two more penalty goals to hammer home Leicester’s pressure for a 20-6 lead.
However, Leicester quickly undid some of the good work when full-back Telusa Veainu lost possession from a counter-attack.
Sale fed on the loose ball and Yarde sped away to score. It made for an uneasy period for Leicester but they managed to put together some concerted pressure to engineer that try for Williams, helped by the speed and thought Youngs and Ford.