Sharks claw their way back at Worcester but have to settle for 34-34 draw

Sale Sharks showed their true spirit and character to claw their way back to draw with Worcester Warriors 34-34, on Saturday,  but they will be kicking themselves it wasn’t a win bonus at the Sixways ground.

The home side played their part in a eight-try thriller, with Sale leading 5-17 at one point and then trailing  31-17 in the second half.

Worcester were looking for the first win of the season and with ten minutes to go, were leading 34-27, but Sale refused to give up and from a line-out deep in Worcester territory, they controlled the ball and mounted a charge and crossed the line for a try-bonus point, leaving AJ MacGinty with a relatively easy conversion to tie the score with three minutes to go.

It could have been so different if Sale Sharks has capitalised after Will Addison scored two tries early on, with AJ MacGinty, returning  to the side after a hamstring injury, converting the kicks and kicking a penalty to give Sale a 5-17 lead.

But instead it was Worcester , who had the sauce to race into a 19-17 halftime lead,  launching prolong attacks at the Sale line, bringing some determined and dogged defence from Sale, but then  things were to get bleaker by the minute in the second half for the Sharks.

Despite showing signs of a fightback with Peter Stringer organising some creative rugby, and some neat forward and backs interplay, Sale Sharks were caught napping within a minute of the second half by a break by Ryan Lamb who fed Olivier who scored underneath the posts, and worse was to follow with Byron McGuigan yellow-carded for an offence in the build up to Worcester’s try.

The big Worcester forwards were asking questions of the Sale pack, but  the Sharks had a great chance to reduce the arrears on 51 minutes but it  was referred to  the TMO who said no try following a forward pass and the ball not being grounded properly.

After an attacking phase Sale  won a  lineout but lost the ball. Worcester capitalised as Cooper Vuna  passed to Shillcock who raced the length of the pitch to touchdown.  Lamb missed the difficult conversion, however, with Worcester leading  31-17  the game looked dead and buried.

 Mike Phillips and Andrei Ostrikov were introduced into the action as Sharks wanted to fight their way back.AJ MacGinty reduced the deficit to 11 when he kicked a penalty from in front of the posts 31-20 on 55 minutes.

 Sale Sharks went through the phases and were building momentum as they edged towards the Warriors line. Neil Briggs was on the end of the driving maul and touched down. AJ MacGinty kept up his 100% kicking performance and Sharks were back in it at 31-27 with 13 minutes to go.

 Worcester decided the best form of defence was to attack and the Sharks defence had to be at their best to hold the home side out. Sharks conceded a penalty which Ryan Lamb kicked to increase Warriors lead to seven at 34-27, but then came the late try and conversion for Sale.

The Sharks had to settle for a thrilling draw at Sixways.

Steve Diamond said after the match:  “I was happy when we got the driving maul working properly which brought us back into the game. I thought it was beyond us at one point, but the lads knuckled down and clawed their way back into the game. I also thought AJ MacGinty was outstanding for us, he kicked all his points and was running things well for us.”

What is clear when Sale Sharks do iron out their kinks in the system and everything clicks, somebody is in for a hammering  !

The next match is Leicester Tigers on Saturday at 2.30pm at the AJ Bell Stadium.