Lee post match

[Heathen]

"Everyone knows about their defence, how structured it is, knows that on their day, they're one of the best defences in the competition, and they got hold of us at times.

They won collisions, we didn't carry, we didn't win the gain line anywhere near enough, as a consequence, we struggled at times. As the pressure came on, and the more that happened, the more we tried to force things, then we get sloppy with the ball and make mistakes. Everything compounds.

We gifted them points. I think if you're coming up against a team like Sale, we're talking about being clinical in our own half, they have a five metre lineout that we over throw that they pick up and score.

We have a restart that we drop and they go and score, it was too easy to score points. You have to work so hard to score points at this level, and we're gifting teams easy points quickly."

[Shugs]

He’s right. Just got to find the remedy now.

[Neils]

He’s right. Just got to find the remedy now.

+1 and soon.

[Vespula Vulgaris]

As a 10 Jimmy has always been hard running, direct and not willing to give an inch. Against a blitz defence like Sale that was always going to be an issue. If you are at the top of your game and have lightning fast service from your 9 then that can be a thing of beauty.

But he hasn't played 10 for years, and without Dobby we struggle for a quick 9, so his instinct to run at them was always gonna lead to a direct collision that we couldn't win.

Mixing up running, immediate flat passes, long deep passes , and chips over the line may well have slowed them enough to create an opening or two.

Personally I'd have loved to see Atkinson at 10, with Jimmy on his shoulder at 12. But perhaps that was thought a step too far for Charlie.

[Neils]

• 7

As a 10 Jimmy has always been hard running, direct and not willing to give an inch. Against a blitz defence like Sale that was always going to be an issue. If you are at the top of your game and have lightning fast service from your 9 then that can be a thing of beauty.

But he hasn't played 10 for years, and without Dobby we struggle for a quick 9, so his instinct to run at them was always gonna lead to a direct collision that we couldn't win.

Mixing up running, immediate flat passes, long deep passes , and chips over the line may well have slowed them enough to create an opening or two.

Personally I'd have loved to see Atkinson at 10, with Jimmy on his shoulder at 12. But perhaps that was thought a step too far for Charlie.

Seeing the whole leg strapping on Charlie's leg I'm glad he wasn't thrown into the 10 position too quickly. He at least has a few minutes real game time under his belt. Small steps onwards.

[Rossm]

Yes, I had a fright when I saw all the strapping on Charlie's leg. I must admit I would have preferred him at 10 to Jimmy but now with hindsight - no.

[Shugs]

Must admit the Atkinson template of returning players is my fear. We’re quite rightly looking forward to their return but we’ve actually no idea how “mended” Launchbury, Willis, Odogwu and Mills are. Fekitoa should be ok but probably only for a few months.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

Yes, Charlie looked far from ready. The only worse it could have been was if he had a walking stick as well. No player should be on the pitch in a Premiership game with that much strapping. If he needs it, he isn't recovered.

[JonnyD]

Charlie had surgery though right? it’s not like the strapping is holding his leg together so he can get through to the offseason. I’m sure we wouldn’t risk throwing him back in when he wasn’t ready but he’s been back training for a few weeks - that strapping was a little worrying though.

Atkinson took a long time to get a touch but in that last ten mins we looked more varied in our attack than throughout the rest of the game, inside passes off 10, passes out the back.
I’m still annoyed Umaga got banned and put us in the situation where Jimmy had to be used there in the first place.

Not sure we can say this isn’t the players’ fault. Our defensive systems have looked very good at times this season, but we were disorganised at times yesterday and it is only the players fault for falling off so many tackles. We gave away 2 tries and a disallowed one against Irish through unforced errors and again two tries yesterday, that is only player error not a coaching fault.

Possibly Blackett is now under pressure a little bit but we have also brought in Mitchell and more coaches to surround him so this really isn’t all on Blackett either.

[Brandnewtorugby]

It would have been easy for Lee to get drawn into comments about the officials for the crawl and the number of 'marginal' off ball incidents, but glad he didn't. No doubt it will be discussed in the reviews and hard to disagree with the result.

Can't help wonder how the game would have gone if our lineout was working.

[mike909]

It's always hard to see on the day - but looking at the stats on England Rugby, our lineout percentage was better than Sale's we won 14 and lost 4.....So it was doing ok at least?

In the game, we made more carries, beat more defenders and made more passes and offloads than Sale....and missed less tackles....

We conceded far too many turnovers - though that seemed to be aided by the officials....who also allowed Sale to incur 17 penalties with only one yellow.

[Rossm]

I know I am raking over old coals, but Curry's crawl really irked me. Tempest and Hodnett couldn't have got it more wrong if they'd tried. I don't know how, it was clear enough on the replays. Even the Sale board think they got away with one. Rather than a try it should have been a Wasps' penalty. This would have got us out of the corner and we would have had a lineout upfield. I know we had lots of problems but that would have been their BP try chalked off. Morale boost for us and a let down for Sale.

Liked this though.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1477961682634911745

[RogerE]

Just got round to watching the match, and was surprised at how much Claire Hudnett (sp?), who I have always thought was one of the better TMOs, missed.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

Just got round to watching the match, and was surprised at how much Claire Hudnett (sp?), who I have always thought was one of the better TMOs, missed.

Hodnett