Stuart Hogg touches down as Exeter hold on to beat Sale
Stuart Hogg scored his first try for Exeter before going off with a head injury as the Chiefs maintained their 100 per cent Heineken Champions Cup record with a nail-biting 22-20 win at Sale.
The Sharks staged a tremendous rally after trailing 22-8 after 25 minutes and scored the only try of the second half but in the end ran out of time and a second defeat in three matches left their qualification hopes hanging by a thread.
Despite scoring three tries before half-time, the Chiefs failed for the first time to secure a bonus point but, after beating all three opponents in Pool Two, they have a stranglehold on the group at the halfway stage.
Hooker Akker Van Der Merwe scored two first-half tries for the Sharks to keep them in the game but they are now below Glasgow in the group and need to beat Exeter in the return fixture at Sandy Park next Sunday to keep alive their hopes of only a second appearance in the knockout stages.
Sale, who were without lock Jean-Luc Du Preez through suspension and had England flanker Tom Curry sin-binned for a professional foul, drew first blood courtesy of a penalty from fly-half Rob Du Preez.
However, the first quarter was dominated by Scotland full-back Hogg, who made the break that led to the opening try before scoring himself.
Hogg was initially denied by a terrific last-ditch tackle by winger Chris Ashton although his good work was undone by Curry, who in the next play tackled scrum-half Nic White from an offside position and was given a yellow card.
Referee Mathieu Raynal awarded a penalty try and the Sharks were down to 14 men when England winger Jack Nowell got around Sam James to create the opening for Hogg to kick ahead and touch down.
Hogg was hurt in the act of scoring and failed his head injury assessment, leaving Olly Woodburn to play the rest of the match in his absence, and Joe Simmonds added a penalty to his earlier conversion to stretch the visitors’ lead to 15-3.
Sale pulled a try back midway through the first half when second rower Bryn Evans charged down White’s attempted clearance kick and the ball fell kindly for Van Der Merwe to score the first of his two tries.
Du Preez was wide with the conversion attempt and the Sharks fell further behind in the 25th minute when England hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie forced his way over from close range for Exeter’s third try, to which Simmonds added his third goal.
Van Der Merwe grabbed his second try, courtesy of a driving maul, five minutes later and Sale winger Marland Yarde, chosen ahead of Denny Solomona, ought to have added another after Faf De Klerk and Van Der Merwe had kept the ball alive only to drop it over the line.
Yarde, hoping to impress watching England head coach Eddie Jones, made way at half-time for Solomona after becoming the latest player to fail a head injury assessment.
Sale dominated for long periods of the second half, with returning centre James taking them close with a clean break, and they took advantage of the sin-binning of Exeter’s substitute prop Ben Moon for persistent team infringing after 68 minutes.
After having a try disallowed at a driving maul, skipper Jono Ross finally applied the finishing touches to a sustained spell of pressure by crashing over for Sale’s third try six minutes from the end.
Du Preez kicked his second goal but the visitors did enough to hang on for a seventh successive victory over the home side.
The match in images:
Comments on RugbyPass
Less modern South African males predictably triggered.
10 Go to commentsMy heart is with Quins, but the head is convinced Toulouse have too much. Ntamack is back, his timing and wisdom has been missed.
1 Go to commentsWow, what a starting line up for the Sharks) Tasty up front,kremer vs Tshituka or venter …fiery ,,Lavannini ,,will he knobble etzebeth? Biggest game for belleau?
1 Go to commentsIt was rubbish to watch, Blues weren’t even present. Did what they had to do, nothing more. Should be better next week against canes.
1 Go to commentsI’ve just noticed that this match has an all-French refereeing team. Surely a game like this ought to have a neutral ref? Although looking at the BBC preview of the Saints game, Raynal is also down as reffing that - so there may be some confusion about who is reffing what.
1 Go to commentsIf Havili can play anywhere in the back line, why not first 5. #10.
11 Go to commentsThe dressing room had already left for their summer break before they ran out in Dublin that year, and that’s on the coach. Franco Smith has undoubtedly made progress, particularly their maul, developing squad players and increasing squad depth. And against a very tight budget too. That said they were too lightweight last year and got found out against both Toulon and Munster in consecutive games. Better this season so far but they’ve developed something of a slow start habit occasionally, most notably losing at home to Northampton who played them at their own game. Play offs will ultimately show whether there has been tangible progress on last year, or not…!
2 Go to commentsAustralian Rugby has been a disaster, by not incorporating learning from previous successful campaigns. QLD Reds 2011 - Waratahs 2014. Players, coaches and administrators appoint there representatives for scheduled meetings, organisation’s agreement’s assessments and correspondence. This why a unified Rugby Union under one entity works. Every Rugby nation has taken that path. Was most difficult in the Northern hemisphere with over 100 years of club rugby before the game become professional. Took a lot of humility for those unions to eventually work together.
7 Go to commentsThough Wilson’s sacking was pretty brutal, it wasn’t just down to that Leinster game; Glasgow had a lot of 2nd half collapses that season, in the URC and Europe, and only just scraped into the playoffs. Franco Smith has definitely been an improvement, some players are delivering far more than they did under Wilson.
2 Go to commentsjesus - that front 5!
1 Go to commentsShould be an absolute cracker of a game! Will be great to see DuPont & Ntamack in tandem once again🔥
1 Go to commentsBest team ever…. To have played? These guys are still pressure chokers. Came nowhere when it counted. What a joke
79 Go to commentsMusk defends anonymous terrorism, fascism, threats against individuals and children etc etc But a Rugby club account….lock ‘em up!!!
1 Go to commentsActually the era defining moment came a few years earlier. February 2002 to be precise, when Michael D Higgins as finance minister at the time introduced his sports persons tax relief bill to the dial. As the politicians of the day stated “It seems to be another daft K Club frolic born in Kildare amongst the well-paid professional jockeys with whom the Minister plays golf” and that the scheme represented “a savage uncaring vision of Ireland and one that should be condemned”. The irfu and Leinster would be nowhere near the position they are in today without this key component of the finances.
5 Go to commentsIt is crystal clear that people who make such threats on line should be tried and imprisoned. Those with responsibility in social media companies who don’t facilitate this should be convicted. In real life, I have free speech to approach someone like Reinach and verbally threaten him. I am risking a conviction or a slap but I could do it. In the old days, If someone anonymously threatened someone by letter the police would ask and use evidence from the postal system. Unlike the Post, social media companies have complete instant and legal access to the content in social media. They make money from the data, billions. Yet, they turn a blind eye to terrorism, Nazi-ism and industrial levels of threats against individuals including their address and childrens schools being published online all from ananoymous accounts not real people. They claim free speech. Free speech for anonymous trolls/voilent thugs threatening people under false names? The fault is with the perps but also social media companies who think anonymous personas posting death threats constitutes free speech.
2 Go to commentsSo if this ain’t the best Irish team ever then who exactly is? I don’t remember any other Irish team being this good & winning a series in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Yes I may rip them often for 8 X QF RWC exits & twice not even making it to the QF, but they’re a damn good team who many think can only improve, including me!
79 Go to commentsNot a squeek out of Leinster for weeks about this match. So quiet. The first team have been quitely building for this encounter under Nienaber’s direction. All fresh, all highly motivated. They are expecting a season’s best performance from Northhampton. They will match that. They will be fresher and apparently they will have 80,000 out of the 83,000 shouting for them. I do expect Northhampton to turn up big time. Not to be missed. On a tangent it is evident how the loss of a few Premiership teams has in some respect helped other Premiership teams and England. More quality over less teams makes the teams better, which has a knock on effect on England. Not the only factor contributing to England’s rise but one of them.
5 Go to commentsOur very own monster teddy bear Ox😍💪
17 Go to commentsThis is might be the most generalised, entitled, patronising, out-of-pocket cultural indictment on a group of people you’ll ever see on what is supposedly a sports publication. I can only assume the author is weak like a woman or homosexual. I’m feeling an incredible range of emotions but I am not quite sure how to express them. I might go beat up a hockey player - assuming that’s okay with Duane and the boys? 🙂
10 Go to commentsBest thing the Welsh clubs could do is apply to join Gallagher prem surely be more exciting matches for there support than they have now.
2 Go to comments