Another thrillingly close game in the Heineken Cup with Blues missing out thanks in part to a sin binning for Andy Powell; shipping 14 points with the Wales number 8 kicking his heels on the touchline.
That’s certainly the verdict from Gwydion Griffiths at the Blues site, calling Powell’s offence an ‘innocuous shove’ on fellow Welsh international Dwayne Peel and the yellow card ‘bizarre’. He praises Blues for their strong start.
Sale’s home calls the victory ‘deserved’, picking out try-scorers Sisa Koyamaibole, skipper Dean Schofield and man of the match James Gaskell for praise. Leading a large Welsh contingent at Edgeley Park is director of rugby Kingsley Jones, who, after selecting a weak side for the opener away at Toulouse, said: “Tonight we’ve got the result so maybe the selection was the right call after all. We respect the tournament and we don’t go anywhere with the intention of losing.
“Obviously, it was a much needed win in terms of our Heineken Cup hopes and by December hopefully we’ll be even better. The result was very important to the club – we’ve performed quite well in recent weeks but not got the right result.”
WalesOnline rates the Welsh exiles’ contribution to the win highly, saying Peel is still fighting to get the Wales number 9 shirt back from Mike Phillips and picking former Blue Lee ‘Bomber’ Thomas as a winner in his battle with opposite number Jamie Roberts. Blues‘ horrifying injury toll is also factored in to this loss in an ‘open and entertaining’ encounter. Referee Christophe Berdos’ sin-binning of Powell is called ‘controversial’ and the video evidence for Sales’ first try ‘flimsy’. The site’s commenters aren’t so cautious: RickyTicktock calls the refereeing the worst he’s ever seen. Alba calls it a disgrace and calls for Blues to snag James Hook to fill the void left by Nicky Robinson’s departure and to boost his international claims as a specialist number 10. Peel’s good, says Demonarrows, but no match for the ‘monster’ that is Mike Phillips.
At The Arms Park forum, Blues fans are happily laying into the ref, but are also concerned by Shanklin and Roberts’ lack of impact and the tendency to gamble Leigh Halfpenny’s bazooka of a boot on penalties.
For the English press, the main story is the dislocation of Andrew Sheridan’s shoulder – the Sale prop will miss the Autumn Internationals and will possibly sit out the Six Nations too.
But Simon Turnbull in The Independent sees some solace for Martin Johnson in the try-scoring performance of young Sale ‘all-action’ lock James Gaskell, who saw the Sharks home to victory – just.
The Times‘ From all the video angles I’ve seen, I don’t see how they could have given that try.”
The Daily Mail‘s Rob Wildman puts the victory down to Sales’ physical forward style and sees selection dilemmas for watching Wales’ coaches in the form of Sharks’ prop Eifion Roberts.
The Manchester Evening News picks out Sales’ returning fly-half Charlie Hodgson, with his 12 point haul, as a key figure in a ‘pulsating’ match. Kinglsely Jones defends his apparent gamble at Toulouse, saying: “There were a lot of things said about my selection last week in Toulouse but we had three England guys in Sheridan, Mathew Tait and Mark Cueto who we had to rest under RFU rules and of the others only Dean Schofield and Eifion Roberts were available to me.”
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