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{"id":289128,"date":"2023-10-15T18:14:17","date_gmt":"2023-10-15T17:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/?p=289128"},"modified":"2023-10-15T18:14:17","modified_gmt":"2023-10-15T17:14:17","slug":"sale-sharks-get-season-off-to-winning-ways-in-league-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/2023\/10\/15\/sale-sharks-get-season-off-to-winning-ways-in-league-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Sale Sharks get season off to winning ways in league opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sale Sharks held off a late Northampton Saints fightback to win 20-15 in their Gallagher Premiership opener at the AJ Bell Stadium.<\/h2>\n
The hosts were behind after three minutes when Tommy Freeman went over for the Saints but three tries by Tom Roebuck, Tom O\u2019Flaherty and Ethan Caine before the break put Sale 20-10 up at the break.<\/p>\n
Northampton scored through James Ramm to cut the deficit to five points with ten minutes to go but it wasn\u2019t enough for the travelling Saints who haven\u2019t won in Salford since 2017.<\/p>\n
The Saints took the lead within the first three minutes when flying winger Tommy Freeman went over in the corner.\u00a0 After a TMO review the try was given.\u00a0 The try was created by the quick thinking of number nine Tom James who took a penalty quickly to catch Sale on the backfoot.\u00a0 Fin Smith added the extras to give Northampton the perfect start in Salford.<\/p>\n
Sale drew level three minutes later when opposing number 14 Tom Roebuck replicated Freeman\u2019s flying finish with one of his own following a brilliant pass out to him by Rob Du Preez.\u00a0 South African Rob Du Preez converted the try with a brilliant kick from the touchline.<\/p>\n
\n
Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe hosts extended their lead in the 12th<\/sup> minute when Roebuck\u2019s fellow winger Tom O\u2019Flaherty got his first try of the new season.\u00a0 After backing themselves, kicking a penalty to the corner, Sale unleashed their backline off the lineout with O\u2019Flaherty receiving the ball in space on the left to go over in the corner.<\/p>\nSaints responded to Sale\u2019s quickfire double with a period of dominance, which led to a penalty but Smith couldn\u2019t convert for the visitors to add to their first-half misery.\u00a0 Smith made up for the missed kicks a few minutes later when he successfully kicked over a penalty to cut Sale\u2019s lead to two points.<\/p>\nSale regained their five points lead four minutes before the break when Rob Du Preez slotted a penalty over from in front of the posts.\u00a0 Two minutes later Sale were over the whitewash once again through substitute Ethan Caine.\u00a0 The hooker dove over from a rolling maul to bag Sale\u2019s third try of the match.\u00a0 Du Preez couldn\u2019t add the extras meaning Sale took a ten point lead into the interval.<\/p>\nThe Saints looked to be away four minutes after the half-time oranges when Smith was breaking over halfway but his pass inside went forward stopping his side\u2019s counter attack.\u00a0 Tempers flared in the 55th<\/sup> minute between the two sides, after a stop start beginning to the second 40.<\/p>\nSaints continued to pile pressure on the hosts with Smith attempting a cross field kick to substitute Tom Seabrook on the left but it was just out of the reach of the former Gloucester man.<\/p>\nSale thought they had their bonus point try in the 68th<\/sup> minute when O\u2019Flaherty dived over in the left corner but the winger was deemed to be in touch by the assistant referee.\u00a0 The Saints halved the deficit a minute later when a high ball in the midfield wasn\u2019t dealt with by Sale leading to Alex Coles having a two on one, which he executed perfectly to unleash Ramm, who cantered in from 40 yards.<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1737163138\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 62.96296% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1737163138?et=f6l7vEmAS25XWWiIRbg0Xw&tld=com&sig=hADELFS0X6OUuTsDCp8BR5yi4h0v1ghU0e1nkV8t4Y8=&caption=true&ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"374\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\nSaints looked to be building towards a late winning try in the 80th<\/sup> minute when they were five metres out and a man up after Rob Du Preez was sin binned for persistent offences in the red area, but Sale held out with a brilliant defensive set to win the game and come away with four points from the opening match of the season.<\/p>\nSale Sharks XV:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"15\">\n<li>Joe Carpenter, 14. Tom Roebuck, 13. Sam James, 12. Sam Bedlow, 11. Tom O\u2019Flaherty, 10. Rob du Preez \u00a9, 9. Raffi Quirke; 1. Si McIntyre, 2. Tommy Taylor, 3. Nick Schonert, 4. Ernst van Rhyn, 5. Jonny Hill, 6. JL du Preez, 7. Sam Dugdale, 8. Dan du Preez.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nReplacements:\u202f<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"16\">\n<li>Ethan Caine, 17. Ross Harrison, 18. James Harper, 19. Cobus Wiese, 20. Josh Beaumont, 21. Gus Warr, 22. Tom Curtis, 23. Arron Reed.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nNorthampton Saints XV:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"15\">\n<li>George Hendy, 14. Tommy Freeman, 13. Fraser Dingwall \u00a9 12. Rory Hutchinson 11. James Ramm 10. Fin Smith 9. Tom James 1. Ethan Waller 2. Curtis Langdon 3. Trevor Davison 4. Alex Moon 5. Alex Coles 6. Angus Scott-Young 7. Tom Pearson 8. Sam Graham<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nReplacements:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"16\">\n<li>Robbie Smith 17. Alex Waller 18. Elliot Millar Mills 19. Tom Lockett 20. Chunya Munga 21. Archie McParland 22. James Grayson 23. Tom Seabrook<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nFollow us on Twitter\u00a0@ProstInt<\/p>\n[columns] \n[column size=”1\/2″][blog type=”timeline” posts=”10″ cats=”607″ heading=”Rugby” heading_type=”timeline” \/][\/column] \n[\/columns]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sale Sharks held off a late Northampton Saints fightback to win 20-15 in their Gallagher Premiership opener at the AJ Bell Stadium. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":257197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,2,607,4063],"tags":[7845,3218,3481,7846,3069],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289128"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289128"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":289147,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289128\/revisions\/289147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}