Telegraph Report:
Wasps record first league win since opening weekend of the season with gutsy performance against Sale
It was far from an assured display but Lee Blackett's men edge past a Sale side still looking for first victory under Paul Deacon
Sale Sharks 23 Wasps 26
This might not have been vintage Wasps, but goodness how they needed this. Lee Blackett’s side had not won a Premiership match since the season’s opening weekend, but 16 points from Lima Sopoaga’s boot laid the foundations for this gutsy, deserved victory.
There was concern, however, when Wasps’ No 8 Alfie Barbeary, who was once again mightily impressive, had to be helped from the field after a second-half injury. Blackett confirmed that the extent of the injury will not be known for “two to four days” but that the promising tyro “heard something go in his ankle”.
Otherwise, Wasps’ head coach was delighted with his team’s display: “I’m really pleased. What a lot of people will not know is that we went into this game after a lot of time off – seven days.
“We had one session coming into this game. I’m not sure I’d have admitted that if we’d have lost but it was a massive gamble. And the players paid us back.”
Nothing could encapsulate Paul Deacon’s start to life in charge of Sale better than the drive-in pantomime taking place across the road, titled Horrible Christmas. This, the final match of England’s top flight in the strangest of years, was Deacon’s third straight loss – he remains without a win since taking the reins – which he blamed on “unforced and uncharacteristic errors” from his side.
“The lads individually know they need to get better,” he said. “But, we need to work on the collective mindset. In the last three performances, for three halves we've been ok and for three halves we've been poor.
Until the opening try, which was delightfully exploited and swiftly finished by Sale wing Marland Yarde – who later bagged a second – the home side had been architects of their own downfall. Sale’s starting front row conceded nine penalties combined – several through breakdown laziness – while Yarde was penalised for the most cumbersome of high tackles on Paolo Odogwu. On another day, too, scrum-half Faf de Klerk might have been more sternly dealt with after a reckless high boot to his opposite number, Will Porter.
It was somewhat surprising, then, that with so much indiscipline, the score was only 3-3 until 10 minutes before the interval; AJ MacGinty and Sopoaga exchanging penalties for either side. Wasps had been the more successful and penetrative of the two teams with the ball in hand – mainly due to Sale’s over-reliance on a route-one approach – but nothing the visitors mustered came close to the blistering choreography that led to Yarde’s score.
De Klerk looped around Tom Curry on the blindside, but the flanker’s pass was misjudged and mistimed. As is so often the case with De Klerk, however, that did not matter. The whippet scrum-half darted to claim the wayward pass before it hit the ground, and linked with MacGinty. By the time the ball had gone through the hands of Sam James, Yarde had a clear dash for the line. Lima Sopoaga’s defensive nibble made Sale’s task easier, but one sensed that Yarde would have crossed even without the Kiwi’s lapse. Over the past two European weekends, however, these Wasps youngsters have shown that they can play and, in one ruthless eight-minute spell in the second half, they were at it again. Gifted fly-half Charlie Atkinson dummied and ghosted his way through to score under the sticks, with Sopoaga’s conversion equalling the scores.
After the visitors were caught dawdling offside, MacGinty restored Sale’s lead, but that would not last. Barbeary pinched the ball at the restart, blasted through three Sale defenders and a pillowy offload gave hooker Tom Cruse an unopposed jaunt to the line. Sopoaga converted, added another three points thanks to a Sale ruck infringement, and Wasps had a seven-point lead to defend – without Barbeary.
Even after MacGinty and Sopoaga traded penalties, Wasps had two length-of-the-field chances that would have put the game to bed. Dan Robson set Josh Bassett clear after a ruthless counter but Sam James hauled the wing down metres short and Curry won a questionable turnover. Then Zach Kibirige hacked downfield, but he could not control the ball metres from the line. The Wasps wing received an accidental thump from Yarde for his troubles, too, and had to be stretchered off after a lengthy delay. Blackett confirmed after the match that Kibirige was conscious and talking in the dressing room.
One final Sale indiscretion – their 11th of the evening – gave Wasps three more points. Yarde’s late, second try – from another silken move – ensured a nervy ending, but the visitors held on to resign Sale to the unhappiest of New Years.
Always a Wasp