Sharks sailed on to their fourth consecutive win for the first time in the club’s history, convincingly beating Leicester Tigers 3-62 at a sunny Mattioli Woods Welford Road.
The win saw the visitors narrow the gap to the top four to just two points as teams around them dropped points on a weekend when Sale extended their winning run to a new club record.
Tigers looked to wrestle some early momentum on home turf in the early stages, and kicked their only points inside ten minutes as Brittany Hogan gave away a penalty on the 22’ in front of the posts that was converted to open the scoring.
The next ten minutes was an attritional battle with both teams hunting for a decisive break through and Sale found one on 20 minutes.
Molly Wright latched herself onto the back of the driving maul and fired herself over before Sale added a second maul score six minutes later. This time Bea Rigoni joined the back of the forwards and threw herself down for the try.
It took the sides another 15 minutes to find the try line. Sharks this time faked the maul and Laura Perrin ran a hard line to crash through the Tigers defence and finish the half with the visitors 3-19 up.
The second half was a different story. Sale stepped on the gas early and lightning-fast winger Asia Hogan-Rochester fended off her Tigers counterpart to score just three minutes into the second 40.
Three more tries followed before the hour mark. Prolific winger Rhona Lloyd continued her stunning season with her 10th try before a Sharifa Kasolo pick and go and a Lizzie Duffy show and go sold the defensive line to give her the chance to fly in.
Next followed a double from Alba Capell. Normally featuring at flanker, the Spanish international played her first game at hooker, and was rewarded with back to back tries from close range. The first after an interception from Rigoni and the second after a huge break from second row Eva Donaldson.
Finally, signing off the huge road win, Rhona Lloyd strengthened her pursuit of this season’s PWR top try scorer as she caught and finished a cross field kick from Rigoni that put Sale over the 60 point mark and pushed them up to 5th in the table with 3 to play.
Sharks fans can now look forward to Bristol at home next weekend with Sale hunting for their fifth win in a row. The Sharks Family can purchase tickets for the game here.
