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1 week ago
11
Thursday may be the new Friday in some walks of life but when it comes to Prem rugby, the jury is out. Sale’s victory over Gloucester to kick off the new season was workmanlike, enough to earn a bonus point but left you suspecting that our parents might have been right all along: do not play out on a school night.
Tries from Tom Roebuck, Nathan Jibulu, Joe Carpenter and Hyron Andrews gave the Sharks a winning start to the campaign, founded on set-piece power, a route one approach and George Ford’s supreme game management. Not all Prem matches have to be try-fests – we may come to yearn for agricultural contests such as these later in the season – but this season opener will not win many beauty points.
Admittedly a late rush shortly before kick-off ensured that what threatened to be a sparse crowd was anything but, although there was an air of reservation in the atmosphere, a sense of self-restraint. Thursday nights work in France, as many things do – the second tier does it to great success – but the Prem’s broadcaster, TNT Sports, considers it a necessary evil, a means to avoid a scheduling clash with Saturday’s women’s World Cup final at Twickenham.
Casting your eye over the teamsheets, there was much to like about two teams with contrasting styles locking horns to lift the curtain on a new campaign. Gloucester looked a little light in the front five at first glance but did include Afo Fasogbon, going up against a fellow 21-year-old tighthead prop in Asher Opoku-Fordjour – a tussle no doubt keenly enjoyed by the England head coach Steve Borthwick.
It was an inauspicious start, however. A little more than 90 seconds after kick-off there was an enforced delay because referee Christophe Ridley’s microphone malfunctioned, long enough for any fresh sets of eyeballs watching at home to turn their attention elsewhere. Those who stayed with it witnessed a scrappy opening, Sale enjoying plenty of the ball but struggling to get by a Gloucester defence determined to fly off the line.
Sale enjoyed the better of the scrum contest, but Fasogbon was making himself a nuisance at the breakdown, winning his side two penalties. Trouble was that Gloucester, with a desperately inaccurate lineout, could do little with the ball whenever he had won it back for them. It was no surprise that Sale opened the scoring, Roebuck pouncing on a loose ball in the right-hand corner to dot down. Gloucester might well feel aggrieved that Ben Curry’s potential knock-on in the buildup was ignored.
A Ross Byrne penalty on his debut put Gloucester on the board, however, before Jack Clement splashed over to pinch a half-time lead for the visitors. It all came from a scrum penalty which was wildly celebrated by Fasogbon, the standout performer in the opening 40 minutes.
It was a surprise, then, to see him replaced at the interval and it was Sale who began the second half the brighter. They thought they had levelled the scores when the scrum-half Gus Warr showcased his footballing skills to kick a loose pass ahead and touch down, only for Ridley to call play back, ruling that the ball had gone forward. It was Sale’s second disallowed try of the night after Jibulu had an earlier effort from the back of a driving lineout ruled out for obstruction.
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More scrum dominance for the hosts yielded further promising territory, however, and the numerical advantage when Clement was sent to the sin-bin for collapsing a maul. Some robust goalline defence from Gloucester’s 14 men initially denied Sale but Jibulu was eventually rewarded with a pushover try before Ford nudged the Sharks back ahead with the conversion.
A Ford penalty ensured Gloucester were five points adrift, which felt like too big a margin to make up, and Carpenter’s late dash to the corner, after a long floated pass from Sale’s fly-half, made sure of a home victory before Andrews clinched the bonus point at the death.
