This defeat does not mark the end of Sale’s Champions Cup campaign but demonstrates they still have considerable ground to make up to be considered contenders. They areflying high in the Premiership but they have now comprehensively been beaten by Toulouse home and away. It was a disastrous day for the Sharks – losing key players to injury as well as Cobus Wiese to a first-half red card – but credit Toulouse for the professional manner in which they closed the match out.
It was not a vintage performance by the five-times champions but it did not need to be. Not with Sale’s indiscipline costing them dearly and not with a full-back with the kind of accuracy possessed by Melvyn Jaminet, who finished with 17 points. Sale will now attempt to get this result out of their systems and book their place in the knockout stages when they travel to Ulster next Saturday.
“We talked about needing to be at our best to give us a chance of overturning Toulouse and we were nowhere near our best,” said the Sale director of rugby, Alex Sanderson. “Taking the early curveballs of losing both props and Cobus out, you’ve still got to be better at your basics. We didn’t do that well enough to deserve the result, as the scoreline indicates.”
You got the feeling it was not going to be Sale’s day after just eight seconds when their two props, Simon McIntyre and Nick Schonert, collided as they chased Rob du Preez’s kick-off and attempted to make a tackle. Both were replaced – Schonert’s head covered in blood – and neither returned.
Sale are made of stern stuff under Sanderson and though they lost the ensuing scrum they held their own at the set-piece thereafter and might have had the opening try after four minutes had Rob du Preez’s long pass to Tom O’Flaherty been more accurate. No matter, it was not long in coming with Akker van der Merwe barrelling over from close range.
Midway through the first half Wiese was shown the red card for a dangerous clear-out on Dorian Aldegheri, making Sale’s task all the more difficult. The referee, Mike Adamson, was whistle happy throughout but Wiese can have no complaints with the decision.
Mark McCall believes Elliot Daly has done more than enough to make Steve Borthwick’s England squad after a player-of-the-match performance in Saracens’ 48-28 win over Lyon.
Daly was at his best as Saracens sealed qualification for the last 16 of the Champions Cup with a game to spare, scoring a hat-trick in just seven minutes and 20 seconds in the first half.
Other tries from Alex Lozowski, Marco Riccioni, Andy Christie and Ben Earl saw Saracens to an impressive victory over last year’s European Challenge Cup champions.
Saracens head to Edinburgh looking to continue their unbeaten European streak next week, but sealing qualification a week early is not something to take for granted and McCall was delighted with his side’s efforts.
He said: “We are happy with that. If you had told us before we would score 48 points and get another 20-point win playing the way we did in the first half then we would have taken that.
“Elliot had an outstanding game, I think everyone knows he has been outstanding all season, he was playing well before tonight and he showed all his qualities again tonight ... I would be very surprised if he is not in Steve’s squad on Monday.”
Meanwhile, Northampton’s director of rugby, Phil Dowson, conceded that a “poor” first-half display left them with too much to do as Saints went down 27-23 to 14-man Munster in their encounter at Thomond Park.
The Saints, for whom Courtney Lawes made a first start since September, are without a win and bottom of Pool B after failing to take advantage of the Munster flanker Jack O’Donoghue’s 22nd-minute red card for a high tackle on David Ribbans.
Trailing 24-0 at half-time, Fin Smith converted tries from Tommy Freeman and James Ramm and kicked three penalties, but time ran out on their comeback bid as Munster hung on.
“We played some really good rugby in the second half and I was really pleased with the group. First half we were poor, discipline was poor again and we conceded far too many opportunities,” said Dowson.
“When they had those opportunities we conceded far too easily. We conceded two tries from four phases and that’s just not good enough."
Player of the match Gavin Coombes crossed twice, either side of an O’Donoghue effort, and a 75th-minute penalty from replacement Jack Crowley made it back-to-back wins for the Irish province over Saints.
Jaden Hendrikse and Marnus Potgieter each scored a pair of tries as the Sharks booked their place in the round of 16 with a 32-3 win over Bordeaux-Begles. It was a third win out of three for the South African franchise in their debut European rugby campaign, with Bordeaux not helping themselves after picking up four yellow cards.
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Toulouse did register a penalty through Jaminet but were unable to fully capitalise on their numerical advantage. They broke down the right through Romain Ntamack but Sam Dugdale made an excellent converting tackle on Antoine Dupont before a forward pass let the Sharks off the hook. Dupont, truth be told, was having a stinker of a half. A loose pass on the right was swiftly followed by a knock-on at the base of a scrum – both mistakes met with a huge cheer from the crowd who were beginning to sense an improbable victory.
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It became a less likely prospect when Jaminet kicked Toulouse into the lead with his second penalty four minutes into the second half, all the more so when he made it three from three with half an hour remaining – Toulouse able to seize the initiative with Sale coughing up too many penalties.
With their noses in front and aware that it was not a day to fling the ball about, Toulouse proceeded to put the squeeze on Sale. Two more penalties from the lethally accurate Jaminet gave the visitors a 10-point cushion before Emmanuel Meafou’s close-range try – after a delightful inside flick from Dupont in the buildup – made sure of victory. Sale’s resistance was broken by this stage and a Toulouse break down the left was eventually finished by the replacement hooker Guillaume Cramont to put the gloss on the scoreline.
