Sale’s play-off hopes alive

salE sHaRks powered to a bonus- point win that keeps their play- off hopes alive to leave newcastle on course for a winless Premiership campaign.

sale scored five tries to end a losing streak at kingston Park stretching back to 2016 but only pulled away in the final quarter in front of 8,361 fans — the biggest home crowd of the season.

This was a 16th successive league defeat for newcastle and unless they can end their barren run against Bath at home, or away at gloucester in the final match of the campaign, they will join Rotherham and london Welsh as the only teams to fail to win a Premiership match all season.

With England fly- half george Ford delivering a faultless kicking display, sale carried too much firepower for a newcastle side who had to erase the memory of the 85 points they conceded at Bristol.

steve diamond, the Falcons consultant director of rugby, praised the character of his team but admitted he needs to bring in ‘two or three ball- carriers’ to help turn the club around.

His players did fight back to tie at 15-15 after 52 minutes, only for sale to show why they reached last season’s Premiership final, with a three-try burst that killed off the home side.

Captain Ben Curry, one of sale’s five try-scorers , said: ‘I had never won here before and they really put us under pressure and the scoreline doesn’t reflect the game.

‘It would have been nice to be doing this a few months ago but we are getting better each game and we are in a good place.’

after Curry’s try, Manu Tuilagi broke through to give Joe Carpenter a score. The home side responded with tries from guy Pepper and Tim Cardall, but then came the sale surge. luke Cowan-dickie, Tom Roebuck and Rob du Preez scored tries and Ford booted five conversions.