2 hours ago
3
For Sale and Alex Sanderson a bonus-point victory which harvested seven tries was surely beyond their wildest imagination.
But for Harlequins the abject misery and humiliation continues after a shocking second-half capitulation as they surrendered a 17-12 interval lead to ship 31 unanswered second-half points.
Sanderson, Sale’s director of rugby, had seen his side lose their previous four games and surrender vital ground in the race for a play-off place.
This was a much-needed antidote to ease the mounting pressure on him, his players and his staff, who met Sale’s owners this week. The gist of the message from Simon and Michelle Orange was simple – raise your game – and it was heeded.
For Harlequins, their play-off hopes already feel all but over with the season not even at its halfway stage.
Perhaps the greater concern for Jason Gilmore, their senior coach, was the manner in which they fell apart at the seams after the break, having led at the interval.
Shockingly, they shipped five second-half tries as Sale won at a canter on a bitterly cold night on the outskirts of Salford.
If they could not beat another side struggling so badly in Quins, could Sale really consider themselves ready to start climbing the table?
It was a nightmarish start, though, for Sanderson and his players as Harlequins led inside the third minute. After a kick to the right corner Rodrigo Isgro was denied by Tom Curry but the visitors quickly pilfered possession from Sale’s lineout and Marcus Smith dived over under the posts.
Smith converted but Sale steadied themselves and hit back in the eighth minute with a slick try from Alex Wills, their homegrown winger.
With Harlequins forced inside their 22-metre line, the hosts’ pressure told when Ford found Rob du Preez and he supplied a rapier-like offload out to Wills, who galloped over in the left corner.
Ford missed the conversion but his intricate probing came increasingly to the fore for Sale, who threatened again in the 18th minute when Tom O’Flaherty bulldozed through Smith from close range before an excellent piece of defensive work from Tom Lawday denied the winger.
But moments later, Sale had their second try when their England and Lions hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie went over from close range and Ford’s conversion put them 12-10 ahead.
Jack Walker’s close-range effort – and Smith’s conversion – put the visitors 17-12 ahead at the break but the second half was ludicrously one-sided.
The flanker Jacques Vermeulen produced two smart finishes to secure the bonus point and Sale, self-belief coursing through their veins, began to move through the gears in devastating fashion.
Centre Rekeiti Ma’asi-White finished off some delightful handling for their fifth before the scrum-half Raffi Quirke pounced on an awful error from Smith to score Sale’s sixth.
There was still time for the replacement hooker Nathan Jibulu to crash over from close range as Sale celebrated returning to winning ways in style.
