Dec 07 Leeds v Sale

Leeds Carnegie v Sale Sharks


Wages’ Day

The song title may well belong to Deacon Blue, but the phrase itself goes back to a dim and distant era and was a favourite of my first serious rugby coach. The ‘Big Yin’ wasn’t one for many words, but when he spoke you listened as his hunches and opinions were usually spot on. It’s fair to say that much of what he said was unintelligible to many of the lads – his thick, guttural Gorbals grunt made sure of that, yet if you could get past the Rab Nesbitt enunciation, his thoughts were always apposite and appropriate. Would that he’d been at Headingley?

“Yous spending all yer wages boys before yous earned them. Yous canae turn up and expect tae win, yous gota show these boys respect or yous’ll get a hiding. Yous got that wages’ day mentality, but you’ve no earned it yet, ken?”

For the first twenty minutes at Leeds and for the entire first half in the home Challenge Cup game against Bayonne, those words kept coming back to my mind. No-one has a God-given right to victory, not even a Munster man. Any team that shows such a degree of arrogance is on a very slippery slope and is more than likely to end up being humbled by opposition that, on paper at least, is inferior. No matter how good a team might be, victory can never be earned by simply turning up and thinking you’ve already won before a ball is kicked: a win has to be earned.

My old team mates eventually cottoned on to what he was trying to say, though one or two of the forwards were still asking who Ken was at the end of the season. The moral of the story nevertheless remains as valid today as it was all those years ago and should be heeded by every team, no matter what level they play at – play from the first whistle and don’t expect any favours from anyone, otherwise the Big Yin might come a calling.

Anyone sitting through the first quarter of the game would be excused for thinking that the league positions of the two teams had somehow been reversed. Sale struggled from the kick off and Leeds were the team that actually played with the passion, desire and belief befitting of a top four team. Eric Lund and Adam Balding played as if their lives depended on it – harrying and hustling and forcing Sale to drop some real clangers.

The pattern was set from the kick off when loose play by Sale resulted in an accidental obstruction. From the attacking 22 metre scrum Leeds squeezed every inch of available space and put the Sharks on the back foot for the next 10 minutes. Inspite of frantic, last-ditch Sale defending, you sensed that a Leeds score was on the cards. Brent Cockbain found himself out of position and offside in his desperate attempt to steal the ball at a ruck: it set the trend for the rest of the match, as he seemed to spend most of time offside and a yard off the pace. Hinton couldn’t convert the penalty, but Leeds were definitely still sniffing blood.

From the 22 drop out, Balding took the ball at speed and charged deep into Sale territory. McGee, the stout little tight head, peeled off the back of the ruck and plodded through under the Sale posts unchallenged. Even though there was more than a hint of obstruction involved in the try, a sneaky little block on Jason White, Ashley Rowden didn’t call it. You’ve got to play to the whistle even if you think the decision is wrong. Hinton converted to give Leeds a 7 point lead with only 9 minutes gone and to be fair, they fully deserved it. They looked like a team that meant business and shouldn’t on this evidence be fighting for survival down in the bargain basement.

Leeds kept up the pressure on the stretched Sale defence with Satala, Biggs, Vickerman and ex-Jet Joe Bedford taking every opportunity to run the ball back at pace. Magnus Lund appeared to be the only Sale player who was fired up: obviously playing against your brother does add an edge to your game. He put himself about from the start and looks to be getting back to his very best. It seemed unfair then to penalise him for not rolling away from the tackle when Balding, Dunbar and his own brother sat on top of him, but Mr Rowden didn’t see it that way. In fact, the referee didn’t appear to be seeing very much at all; various infringements that would’ve been picked up by a Spreadbury or a Pearson went unpunished on both sides. Hinton didn’t really care – he just took the gift, converting the penalty and taking the score to 10 nil with barely 13 minutes played.

Of the people on the field, the only one who could’ve been happy with the next ten minutes or so was our friend Ashley. He used his whistle more than any shepherd might do in a day’s work out on the hills with his dogs. Mind you, he had to – the standard and execution of play was particularly poor from both teams; dropped balls, knock-ons, collapsing scrums and more turn-over ball than you could shake a stick at.

Of greater concern though was the Sharks lineout. We struggled to win our own ball through a combination of poor throwing and muddled options and appeared to take an age to get the ball back into play as the players twirled around like line dancers. If there’s a problem the easiest way to put it right is to keep things simple and go for the percentage ball.

At Leeds’ line outs the problems were even worse. Every ball as far as anyone could see had only one target and that was Eric Lund: being about 8 feet tall I suppose he was the obvious choice. Sale always chose the wrong option though and opted to compete with either Hooper or Oakley, which was wasteful in the extreme. Sale never looked likely to steal one of their balls.

The penny finally dropped on 25 minutes when Sale were aggrieved by another mistake by the referee, though in fairness he wasn’t aided by his touch judge who was stood right by the incident. Cueto took the ball in the Sale 22 after neat interplay between Laharrague and Mayor and carried before hoisting up the Garryowen. The ball clearly touched Biggs’ hand before crossing the line. Nevertheless the line out went to Leeds amid Sale’s protestations. There’s none more dangerous than a team that’s scorned. The slight clearly fired up Sale and they started to play more of the kind of rugby you would expect from then on.

Hodgson opened Sale’s account by kicking a penalty on 26 minutes after Leeds had been penalised for not rolling away at a ruck. He converted yet another penalty 8 minutes later after Leeds were pinged for offside by the referee. It could, however, have been better than that: 3 points is better than none but had Cueto spotted the 3 on 1 overlap sooner, following some mesmerising and flowing cross field passing, Sale were a shoe-in for a definite 7 pointer.

The final error-strewn 7 minutes were ones to forget, even for the purists as both teams conspired to make the simple look complicated. Neither team looked capable of keeping the ball for more than 2 phases of play before knocking on or falling over. Neither set of fans was particularly approving either. Sale relapsed into that pre-set pattern of not committing enough men to the ruck and either conceding a turnover or producing incredibly slow ball at the breakdown. Hodgson could at one particular stage have sat down and had a brew whilst he was waiting for the ball to come out to him.

Just when every Sale fan was giving up hope and wondering what to get to drink during the interval, a moment of magic arrived at last. Jones picked up a loose ball from a Leeds ruck just outside their 22 and fed the ball to Cueto. He feigned outside but stepped off his right leg, taking out Vickerman. The ball was passed to Laharrague and finally shipped out to Thomas who skipped over in the corner. It might’ve been an acute angle but Hodgson was obviously wearing his lucky boots: the ball went straight between the uprights taking the half-time score to Leeds 10, Sale 13. Frankly had Leeds had the guile and skill in their three-quarter line they could probably have had at least 2 more tries, but there you go.

The second half began much as the first, with Leeds taking the game to Sale and refusing to believe that a victory was beyond them. In all fairness that was the prediction before the game kicked off: yet predictions are notoriously dodgy. Leeds set up camp in the Sale 22 after another less than convincing Sale restart. When Jones was penalised for not rolling away, Leeds signalled their intent and kicked for the corner rather than the posts. They obviously believed the game was there for the winning.

It’s easy to say in hindsight that it was the wrong choice. You either have to go with your instincts or be guided by your captain, but, the one thing Sale have managed to do extremely well this season is defend their own 5 metre line. Yes they’ve conceded more tries than they would’ve liked, but rarely from pick and go rugby: Sale’s forwards are too strong. Leeds put in an awful lot of effort but for no reward. Had they chose to switch the ball out wide, they may have given themselves other options but they backed their own forwards. Mayor stole the ball at the breakdown and tried to run it from deep, which was a mistake as he was scragged by Eric Lund, but Lee Thomas saved the day by regaining possession and belting the ball out on halfway.
Chances did come Sale’s way but with the way the luck was running it could still have been anyone’s game. Hodgson missed a penalty just inside the Leeds half after Leeds were penalised for not rolling away. Lawson successfully charged down the 22 drop out but held on to the ball in contact and ceded possession. A Hodgson attempted drop goal looked more like one of my attempts as the wind caught it in mid-flight. Even wonder-boy Lee Thomas couldn’t get it quite right when deputising for the injured Hodgson. His attempted penalty from out wide hit the uprights and bounced out hinting to many Sale supporters there that maybe this just wasn’t their day.

However, the Welsh wizard soon put matters to rights with a piece of juggling worthy of the Moscow State Circus. Cueto once more attempted the Garryowen and was able to turn over the Leeds ball, Hodgson took Wiggy’s pass and fed an outside ball to Ripol. He stepped inside and threw a lovely ball out to Thomas approaching at speed on the wing and he somehow managed to tip the ball up in the air with his fingertips, flip it again with his other hand and then gather the ball and plant it in the corner. If that was masterful, his conversion was even better.

Leeds are a tenacious lot though. No sooner had Thomas put daylight in between the teams than Biggs steps up to reel them back in. Fair play to the lad, he’s quick and powerful and can be a tricky little so and so, but 3 Sale defenders should’ve snuffed out that chance straight away. Having said all that, his step back onto his inside leg was masterful. Hinton once again couldn’t convert but the scores were once again too close for comfort.

Having done the Sale back 3 for pace moments before the odds on him not intercepting Hodgson’s cross kick were slim to say the least. He had a five metre start on Chris Mayor and looked favourite to get to the ball first. Mayor was having none of it though. He read Hodgson’s intention and chased after it like a whippet, showing a real poachers’ instinct by throwing himself at the ball from the 5 metre line. Somehow he managed to steal the ball from the arms of Tom Biggs and ground the ball in the corner. It was a fantastic try and was converted once again by Thomas. You sensed that now Sale really did believe the bonus point was there for the taking.

It might not have arrived until the last 5 minutes, but ask any Sale Sharks’ fan and they’ll tell you the trip across the Pennines was worth it. With time running out quickly, Martens managed to dig the ball out at a Leeds ruck and give a quick pass to Hodgson. The fly half’s speed of thought and peripheral vision is such that he can see opportunities where few others can: what’s more, he has the skills and the gumption to go with these instincts. The easy ball would’ve been to either Thomas or Mayor who were both approaching at speed on his left. The Leeds defence were drifting across to cover this eventuality. Hodgson though, looked at the bigger picture and sent out an inch-perfect, double-miss pass to the marauding Ripol who merely had to straighten his run and amble unchallenged under the posts and plant the ball in the same spot where McGee had started proceedings an hour before. There was a sort of karma-like quality to it. Laharrague, not wishing to be outdone, got his name on the score sheet with a deft little conversion, giving Sale an unassailable 19 point lead.

It’s perhaps just as well the lead was substantial, because that man Biggs wasn’t done. Anything Thomas could do, he could match. Another almost carbon-copy like move of chip and chase saw him once again emerge victorious from under a pile of white shirts. How he managed to do it is difficult to fathom as Sale had 3 defenders back covering that eventuality. Anyway, he did and he deserved his score as one of the better Leeds performers on the day.

Now it’s off to London Irish. Not the easiest of places to go at any time. They’re hard to beat on their own turf and have formidable strength in the set piece, particularly their line out with the throwing of David Paice and the jumping skills of Kennedy and Casey. Line outs are not a Sale speciality at the moment, so care will definitely be needed. On the basis of recent results it would appear that Sale should expect to win having won 8 of their last 9 matches in all competitions. Irish by contrast have lost 5 of the last 6 encounters with the Sharks. Does that tell you anything? Well, frankly no, except no-one believes statistics except statisticians, unless it suits them. I prefer to base my predictions on something much more quantifiable. The games that are on paper meant to be formalities like the Montpellier and Worcester clashes are always anything but. I’ll let the number crunchers use their calculators and I’ll stick with my hunches. Like Homer said – Simpson, not the Greek fella – statistics lie: 9 out of 10 people know that!