There was no happy homecoming for Warriors Lead Rugby Consultant Steve Diamond on a bruising afternoon at the AJ Bell Stadium.
Diamond made his first return to the ground where he spent ten years as Director of Rugby but his current side were out-muscled by his old one in a match in which little went right for Warriors.
Warriors led 12-10 at the break and with the wind at their backs. They knew that a lot would have to go right for them into the wind in the second-half if they were to maintain that advantage, instead most things went wrong for them.
Perry Humphreys was sin-binned on his 100th appearance for a clumsy obstruction which left Warriors to play ten minutes with 14 men.
It proved a costly yellow card as Sale scored two of their six tries during that period which helped them to establish a match-winning lead.
Warriors also ended the match with 13 men through injuries. Sam Lewis departed in the first half with a tight quad muscle and Kyle Hatherell (shoulder) and Tom Dodd (knee) both left before the end. Having already emptied the bench Warriors had no more replacements available and they went into the last scrum of the match with Humphreys as a makeshift flanker.
Dodd’s injury was particularly unfortunate as he had been a stand-out performer for Warriors, carrying aggressively in attack and matching Sale for physicality.
Murray McCallum also stood up well out of position at loosehead prop on his Premiership debut and Seb Atkinson also carried well when he came off the bench for his first appearance in the competition.
In the end Sale’s physicality proved decisive with four of their tries coming in the second half whe Warriors struggled for territory into the strong wind.
Warriors were caught out early on when, after knocking on the kick-off, they struggled to get out of the 22 and Sale attacked wide from a lineout where full-back Sam James hit the line at pace and went through a big gap in the defence.
AJ MacGinty was unable to add the conversion into a strong wind and Warriors regrouped quickly and made sensible use of the conditions to put Sale under pressure for most of the rest of the half.
The pressure eventually told when Warriors went through the phases and Tom Howe came off his wing and spotted a gap to score his 28th try in 49 appearances for Warriors.
Fin Smith landed the conversion, despite the wind, but Sale were ahead again within five minutes after MacGinty slipped a tackle and chipped ahead for wing Arron Reed to follow up and dot down.
MacGinty again missed the conversion and Warriors went into the break with a two points lead after Faf de Klerk’s attempted clearance kick was charged down by Perry Humphreys and the ball bounced nicely for Niall Annett to touch down for an unconverted try.
That was as good as it got for Warriors but it was only when Humphreys was sin-binned that Sale managed to regain the lead.
It came when Manu Tuilagi and Curtis Landon both went over for close-range tries while Warriors were down to 14 men.
Reed crossed for his second soon after Humphreys returned from the sin bin and Rohan Janse van Rensburg rounded off a sweeping attack ten minutes from time.
Warriors | 15 Jamie Shillcock, 14 Perry Humphreys, 13 Alex Hearle, 12 Ashley Beck (Atkinson 54), 11 Tom Howe, 10 Fin Smith (Searle 67), 9 Gareth Simpson (Chudley 65), 1 Murray McCallum (Owen 59), 2 Niall Annett (Miller 59), 3 Christian Judge (Tyack 59), 4 Matt Garvey (Batley 59), 5 Graham Kitchener, 6 Ted Hill (C), 7 Sam Lewis (Hatherell 24), 8 Tom Dodd.
Replacements | 16 Isaac Miller, 17 Kai Owen, 18 Jay Tyack, 19 Joe Batley, 20 Kyle Hatherell, 21 Will Chudley, 22Billy Searle, 23 Seb Atkinson.
Timeline
3m | James try 5-0
16m | Howe try 5-5
17m | Smith con 5-7
22m | Reed try 10-7
32m | Annett try 10-12
51m | Tuilagi try 15-12
52m | MacGinty con 17-12
58m | Langdon try 22-12
61m | Reed try 27-12
62m | MacGinty con 29-12
70m | Rensburg try 34-12
71m | MacGinty con 36-12