Sale shock Exeter to close in at top
Sale Sharks picked up their first win against Exeter Chiefs in nine attempts to upset the Premiership leaders at Sandy Park.
It was a deserved victory – only their second ever at the Devon venue, six years after their first – but they were given a scare by the Chiefs, who fought back from a 22-5 interval deficit to get within three points of their visitors.
However, Sale cleverly saw out the game and even had the chance to claim a try-scoring bonus point at the death, but camped on the Chiefs’ line with time up, they opted to kick the ball out.
The win lifted Sale up to third, only four points behind leaders Chiefs, and director of rugby Steve Diamond said:
“We have been playing reasonably well and we have had to put lesser teams out in Europe for various reasons, but we targeted this game because we have always run them close here but only won once in about 10 games. I am delighted.
“It was great defence from us in the second half, I think we were on our own line for about 15 to 20 minutes and not many sides do that to Exeter so it was a bit of a statement from us. I am chuffed about us being third.”
Exeter were missing 12 first-team players through injury, international call-ups or suspension, including Xfactor performers such as Henry Slade, Jack Nowell, Stuart Hogg and Ollie Devoto, but director of rugby Rob Baxter refused to make excuses.
“We don’t need them,” he said. “Sale did some really good things in the first half and got momentum, some strong carries and got themselves on the front foot and we didn’t deal with that. We did in the second half but by then the game was getting away from us.
“Great credit to the lads for fighting their way back in and it was an important bonus point for us. The first 40 minutes really hurt us.”
Sale dominated the opening quarter and should have amassed more than the eight points they managed.
The Sharks thought they had added to fly-half Rob du Preez’s early penalty when Kiwi lock Bryn Evans forced his way over the line, but there was no clear sight of the grounding and the score was ruled out by television match official Geoff Warren.
However, five minutes later Chris Ashton got over in the corner for his 86th Premiership try after Exeter had lost their own line-out and Sale led 8-0.
That touchdown came four minutes after Chiefs winger Tom O’Flaherty had been sin-binned for a deliberate knock-on, but Exeter finally got a foothold in the game on the half-hour with a Phil Dollman try.
South African centre Rohan Janse Van Rensburg was shown the yellow card straight from the restart after a high hit on Gareth Steenson. Despite being a man down, Sale took the game by the scruff of the neck with two tries in two minutes just before half-time.
An excellent blindside attack by scrum-half Will Cliff resulted in the first for No 8 Dan du Preez, followed by a 45-metre interception try by former Chief Byron McGuigan from Stu Townsend’s pass. With Rob du Preez converting both, Sale had a 17-point interval lead.
He should have extended that early in the second half but missed a penalty before Exeter piled on the pressure.
They were kept out by some superb defence and maybe some lenient refereeing by JP Doyle, who gave six red-zone penalties in almost as many minutes but failed to pull out a yellow card.
Sam Simmonds finally breached the dam with a try off a five-metre scrum, improved by Steenson, and when O’Flaherty got another converted score with five minutes left, it set up the grandstand finish.