For one final time this season, unless some miracles occur, it’s Friday Night Lights in the North West!  

Last time here we dispatched, with unusual comfort, an in-form Saracens team to continue an impressive run of form towards the top 4. It was a first half blitz from Sale, ran by master puppeteer George Ford who had the Saracens defence on strings to put Rekeiti Ma’asi-White through for an early try. And just when you thought our attack couldn’t get any better, some Roebuck and Carpenter magic sent Fordy under for another. And THAT try would probably have picked up try of the season had we not given Arron Reed the ball five metres out from his own line, to allow him to promptly tie Nick Tompkins in multiple knots and breeze past British and Irish Lion Elliot Daly for, undoubtedly, the score of the season. It couldn’t get any better could it?  

Well, no, not really – the second half quietened down as everybody’s minds kept wandering back to Reedy’s try, but it was the most comfortable last 10 minutes of a home game for quite some time and we went into the Leicester game with it all to play for. 

On a similar theme, the first half at Leicester was an excellent one. Again Sale got off to a rapid start, scoring early through the forwards this time. Unfortunately shortly after Leicester responded, and so began an ongoing game of Sale producing excellent moments (a great line by Rekeiti, an unbelievable link up to finish between Ford and Reed) while never managing to get Leicester any further away than arms length. As Rob du Preez went over for the bonus point try just before the half time whistle, however – it felt that maybe we had finally put that Tigers resistance to bed.  

Alas, as we all now know, that was not to be. A second half which saw Sale try perhaps a little too hard in attack, added to some clinical finishing from Leicester, Handre Pollard running the game and our maul defence crumbling all saw the game slip away from us. The final nail in the coffin came as Leicester got over to take a losing bonus point away from us with the last play of the game, in exactly the same way as they’d secured the win about 10 minutes earlier. Bitter disappointment if you’re a Sale fan, there’s no way to sugar coat it. What it means is that this Bristol game is now a hugely significant one in our season, and nothing less than a win with a bonus point will really do to keep our season on track. So no pressure… 

Thankfully we will be helped in that by some players who deserve a special mention here – firstly our two current Lions (we’re hoping for a few more in the coming weeks!), Tom Curry and Luke Cowan-Dickie. A huge achievement for both and we are so delighted as fans for them. And on a more emotional note, tonight is a final home outing for the unbelievable Jean-Luc du Preez who leaves the club at the end of the season. JL has given us some amazing memories as fans, from his physicality and commitment in defence to his ability to bump off the biggest defenders before throwing ridiculous offloads and scoring tries. Thank you JL – we are gutted to see you go but what an amazing player you’ve been for this club.  

All that’s left for us to do as fans is get behind him and the rest of the team so that we can hopefully see him one final time at Twickenham in June. Stranger things have happened! 

Enjoy the game, and thanks for reading this season. 

Alex and James