A statistical overview of this Cardiff Blues have given themselves a fighting chance to progress to the final eight by beating Sale sharks at their Cardiff City Stadium on Saturday evening’s match.
The result means that both the Blues and the Sharks will be hoping that Harlequins can upset the odds in Toulouse on Sunday to keep Pool 5 live going into the final round of matches next week.
Defeat was bound to more or less end either team’s hopes of progressing any further in Europe unless Pool leaders Toulouse trip up on the run in.
Now the Blues must pick up a win at Harlequins next weekend to stay in the hunt for at least a quarter-final berth in the Amlin Challenge Cup.
As for Sale, they can expect a tough week in training ahead of their home clash with Toulouse after what director of rugby Kingsley Jones described as “a five out of 10 performance.”
They more than anyone have to hope Harlequins can do the near impossible in France today and then knock-over the three times winners next weekend.
Sale got off to a flying start thanks to an opportunist try from giant No 8 Sisa Koyamaibole after the one poor home scrum of the game and they were still in the hunt at half-time with only seven points between the two teams.
But two tries in a five minute purple patch at the start of the second half put the Blues firmly in control and kept their European dreams alive. It was the one point defeat in Sale at the start of their campaign that really dented their campaign, but they made up for that disappointment by making it a clean sweep of their home Pool matches.
Their win was based on the hard graft of Gethin Jenkins’ pack and the ever-reliable boot of Ben Blair. The Kiwi full back thumped over four penalties and converted all three tries, including one off the right touchline, for a match tally of 18 points.
Livewire scrum half Richie Rees bagged the first of the two second half scores to push his hopes of a call-up into the Welsh Six nations squad and then lock Bradley Davies powered over for the second.
Sale responded almost immediately with a try from Mathew Tait that owed everything to the timing of a Charlie Hodgson pass to young lock James Gaskell to put him through a gap, but a yellow card for prop Martin Halsall with 15 minutes to go severely dented the visitors’ recovery plans.
Gaskell romped over for a third try three minutes from time and Charlie Hodgson’s touchline conversion gave Sale a sniff of an unlikely bonus point.
But, as they went for the fourth try, they threw one pass too many and the Blues’ man of the match Xavier Rush nipped in to steal an interception on the 22 and race clear to the posts for a try with the last move of the match.
Blair added the conversion and that gave the Blues a comfortable victory in the end.
