There will come a time to truly judge the credentials of a Sale side whose solitary title success came nearly 20 years ago, but Friday night was not it. Not when they came up against a Newcastle side who surrendered so meekly during the opening 40 minutes that it did not feel like a meaningful contest.
Alex Sanderson’s team were 31-0 up and in total control at half-time after running in five tries in what was supposed to be a feisty northern derby yet, in reality, was anything but. There will be far greater challenges for Sale. There has to be. It cannot always be this easy.
Still, for Sanderson the nine-try blitz was a welcome antidote to last week’s defeat at Bath and a reminder of Sale’s strength on home soil with this their second bonus-point victory of the season in Salford.
For the England coach, Steve Borthwick, there were plenty of reasons for optimism from a Sale perspective, with the wing Tom Roebuck claiming centre stage thanks to a clinical hat-trick. For Newcastle, still in the early throes of post-Red Bull takeover reconstruction, this was another night to forget as they slumped to a third straight defeat.
Sale were missing the Curry twins through injury but Luke Cowan-Dickie made his first appearance since featuring in the British & Irish Lions tour of Australia. The England hooker will hope to feature in next month’s autumn internationals along with Roebuck, Joe Carpenter, George Ford, Bevan Rodd and Asher Opoku-Fordjour. They all started against Newcastle and made their mark as Sale steamrollered their way through the first period.
Borthwick is also keen to secure the services of Sale defensive guru Byron McGuigan for the autumn campaign. The Namibia-born former Sale and Scotland wing, 36, was commandeered by Borthwick to serve as a defence coach during England’s successful three-Test summer tour of Argentina and the US.
McGuigan prowled the touchline as Sale quickly built up a head of steam against a Newcastle side who struggled badly from the off. With Ford’s intricate probing and clever kicking game guiding Sale around the field, it came as no surprise when three early tries put them in total control.
They led when neat work from a lineout allowed them to exploit space on the blindside for Rob du Preez to dive over from close range. The home side soon added a second with Roebuck the beneficiary of some neat passing involving Carpenter inside the right channel. Roebuck backed himself in impressive fashion, driving through the heart of a leaden-footed Newcastle defence to score and give Borthwick another reminder of his talent.
Newcastle struggled to escape from behind their 22-metre line and, after centre Max Clark was shown a yellow for persistent offending, Sale were denied a try by the TMO but moments later Cowan-Dickie bustled over from close range for their third.
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The Sale captain, Ernst van Rhyn, bustled his way over for the bonus-point try in the 34th minute while Cowan-Dickie saw yellow for a foul shortly after. However, Scotland wing Arron Reed added an exhilarating fifth on the stroke of half-time, racing on to a delightful grubber kick from Du Preez to score in the left corner.
Newcastle refused to throw in the towel and Elliott Obatoyinbo showed impressive strength to manoeuvre his way over the line early in the second half. That drew a cheer from the small band of travelling supporters but normal service was soon resumed when Roebuck glided his way through another defensive gap to score his second.
Nathan Jibulu then showed his growing importance to Sale with his third Prem try in as many games this season before setting up Reed for his second. The hooker burst down the right flank and showed intelligence to find Reed and the speedy wing did the rest to complete his double before Roebuck squeezed over for his hat-trick score at the death.
