MATCH REPORT | SARACENS 17-21 SALE SHARKS

Your Sharks recorded their first win of the Gallagher PREM season with a hard-fought 17-21 victory over Saracens at the StoneX Stadium.

It proved to be the perfect response to last weekend’s season opener against Bristol Bears, with the away side recording a morale boosting victory at what has been an unhappy hunting ground for them in recent seasons.

It was a gruelling win that wasn’t without adversity for Alex Sanderson’s side, having spent a period in the first half with 13 men after both Alex Lozowski (yellow) and Jacques Vermeulen (20-minute red) spent time on the sidelines for indiscretions.

However, tries from Nathan Jibulu, Tom O’Flaherty and Ben Bamber was enough to ensure Your Sharks would return home with their first points of the new league campaign.

Al made four changes from the meeting with the Bears at the CorpAcq, with Nicky Smith, Nathan Jibulu, Gus Warr and Lozowski coming into the starting side, whilst Ponipate Loganimasi made his debut from the bench in the second half.

Sale started strongly in the Capital and after riding some early Sarries pressure with strong defence, they had broken the deadlock inside five minutes as Jibulu capitalised on a driving maul to crash over. George Ford was reliable with the boot and added the conversion.

The first half turned out to be a stop-start affair, with regular TMO decisions denying a free-flowing half, with Lozowski sent to the sin-bin for a tackle on Alfie Barbeary.

Shortly after, and Saracens’ numerical advantage was made bigger with Vermuelen’s tackle on Tomos Williams ruled dangerous and was shown a 20-minute red card to reduce Sale to 13.

The hosts thought they’d responded instantly as Nick Tompkins was able to get over from close range but the score was ruled out by the TMO for an obstruction from Nick Isiekwe in the line-out prior to the score.

With Lozowski back on the field, Sale’s defence proved resolute as they rode wave after wave of Saracens’ pressure until finally breaking as Eroni Mawi wrestled over from close range, but Burke’s conversion drifted wide.

Back to their full contingent, the away side managed to see themselves into the break relatively unscathed and despite spending most of the opening 40 at a numerical disadvantage, were good value for their lead.

The second half started in perfect fashion for Sale as O’Flaherty collected a high Ford bomb just inside Saracens half and burst through a gap to open up the defence to go over in the corner. Ford added the extras to street their lead to nine points.

But the home side were quick to react and three minutes after Flats’ effort, Sione Va’enuku found space out wide to get over and the game was back to a one-score game.

Sarries were starting to find some rhythm but as had been the case all afternoon, Sale’s defence stood firm to everything thrown at them – emphaised by a Tom Curry effort to thwart a break down the right-hand side and win the away side a penalty in the process.

With that, Sale pushed for more points and after patient play in the build up, Ford expertly picked out an outstanding Bamber line to break the defence and cross over for a vital score. With Lozowski adding the extras, the lead was stretched to 11.

It proved to be a tense finish at the StoneX, however, as Saracens crossed with 10 minutes to go as the Bracken brothers combined nicely for Charlie to reduce the deficit to just 5 points and set up a potential grand finale.

But Sanderson’s men managed the closing stages superbly and held on to record their first win of the league season, as they return home to face Harlequins at the CorpAcq on Sunday 11 October looking to make it back-to-back wins.

Buy tickets for the visit of Harlequins here.

Sale: 15. Joe Carpenter, 14. Tom O’Flaherty, 13. Joe Marchant, 12. Alex Lozowski, 11. Arron Reed, 10. George Ford, 9. Gus Warr, 1. Nicky Smith, 2. Nathan Jibulu, 3. Asher Opoku-Fordjour, 4. Ernst van Rhyn (c), 5. Ben Bamber, 6. Courtney Lawes, 7. Tom Curry, 8. Jacques Vermeulen

Replacements: 16. Ethan Caine, 17. Si McIntyre, 18. Tomas Francis, 19. Christ Tshiunza, 20. Elia Canakaivata, 21. Dom Hanson, 22. Marius Louw, 23. Ponipate Loganimasi