Sale V Newcastle Fri 7.45pm

[fivepointer]

Sale: Haley; Solomona, Addison (c), Jennings, McGuigan; MacGinty, De Klerk; Harrison, Neild, Tarus, Ostrikov, Beaumont, Ross, T. Curry, Strauss

Replacements: Jones, Flynn, John, Nott, B. Curry, Ioane, Cliff, James

Newcastle: Hammersley; Tait, Harris, Josh Matavesi, Agulla; Hodgson, Takulua; Vickers, Lawson, Welsh, Green, Witty, M. Wilson, Welch (c), Chick

Replacements: S. Socino, Mavinga, Davison, Cavubati, Latu, Stuart, JP. Socino, Goneva

[Digby]

Bloody Romanians over here taking our jobs... Also Sale seem to be loading up the forwards on the bench, do they normally and I normally don't notice?

[Mikey Brown]

Diamond does it more frequently than most, no? And isn't that 3 backrowers on the bench too?

[Puja]

Nott's a second row by preference, although he can play 6.

Diamond's keeping with his Curry rotation scheme, which I'm all in favour of, in terms of not running them into the ground too early in their careers. Odd to see Neild starting at hooker - I had thought he was seen as more of a flanker nowadays. Are Sale missing people through injury there?

Puja

[Raggs]

Bryn Evans.came off injured against wasps.

[bitts]

Hmm. Going to be odd watching this. On one hand I really want Falcons to do well. On the other I could do with Denny D getting some points.

Guess these conflicting feelings are a byproduct of fantasy football.

Sara Elgin chatting about falcons being top 4 is a joke. 7th would be an achievement, 6 would require a few teams to implode.

[Timbo]

Probably would have given this a miss last season...quite looking forward to it this.

Big hit Tom Curry!

[16th man]

Sale lineout killing all momentum

Playing some nice rugby though. Faf de Klerk looks class.

Think the refs and touch judges need a refreshed on spotting offside though, as Newcastle weren't even being subtle about it.

[16th man]

Neald looks like a 7 playing 2.

[Tigersman]

Wonder why Sam James isn't starting?

Wouldn't mind him at Tigers on the current situation.

[twitchy]

They said he made defensive lapses last week.

[16th man]

Who had De Klerk down for the Joel Schuster?

[twitchy]

Classy little player isn't he.

[16th man]

How does the ref not spot Latu there?

[16th man]

Ref's completely abandoned the concept of offside. That last Newcastle kick went straight up and their forwards just stood, didn't retreat, blocked Sale players going for the ball, but didn't get pinged for not retreating.

[twitchy]

A bit of an odd game honestly. What do you think the record number of knock ons is, I reckon McG is going for it.

[Mellsblue]

Who had De Klerk down for the Joel Schuster?

Initially I thought it was Mimi from Allo Allo.

[16th man]

A bit of an odd game honestly. What do you think the record number of knock ons is, I reckon McG is going for it.

Not that odd for Sale unfortunately. This is Sale for the last 2 or 3 seasons. 80% good, with a lot of hard work, but that final bit of quality to finish things off is lacking. The difference with 2 / 3 seasons ago was that Cips would occasionally do something ludicrous or Braid would single-handedly win the breakdown to the degree that we couldn't fail.

[bitts]

Hmm, my decision to play Chick on the bench rather than Clifford may have backfired....

Witty (who I dropped, of course) is a beast. Gets through a shedload of work.

Ref does appear somewhat out of his depth.

[16th man]

Games going to be won by the side who manage to string 5 phases together without dropping the ball.

Or having a brain fart like that.

[16th man]

Fairly clear shoulder in Addison's face not even looked at.

[16th man]

Joel Hodgson must have said something about the Curry's mum. That's the 2nd time tonight they've absolutely nailed him.

[Raggs]

Maybe they know they need to be seen putting in dominant hits, and he's the smallest guy on the pitch.

[16th man]

Dire game of rugby, really not helped by the ref and the touch judges completely abandoning the offside line.

Sale need to have a serious look at the lineout. Can't expect to win a game with a @50% success rate.

[fivepointer]

Quite a come down after last weekends excellent rugby. Neither side really got going with mistakes abounding. Difficult to pinpoint much of interest, but i thought the Currys looked full of beans and Green was rightfully MotM. Haley looks a shadow of the player who was so good a couple of seasons back.

Backfoot offside is not difficult to police - the TJ's can easily call it - and is regularly ignored by most officials in most games. Last night was particularly bad, but this happens week in, week out in the Premiership.