Shropshire Star

Mike Forshaw delighted with display from depleted Sale team

Sale played without a scrum-half for a large chunk of the match.

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Defence coach Mike Forshaw was delighted with Sale’s 45-18 away victory over a severely under-strength Scarlets side in the Anglo-Welsh Cup.

Forshaw also defended the conduct of replacement scrum-half Faf De Klerk after the former South Africa player was sent off when he received two yellow cards in quick succession.

Tries from Josh Charnley, Rob Webber, Ben Curry, Aaron Reed, Josh Strauss and Curtis Langdon were enough to secure the victory.

The Scarlets scored two tries of their own courtesy of left-wing Jack Price and scrum-half Lee Rees.

“It wasn’t ideal for us winning without a scrum-half for most of the second half but we scored seven tries and we are delighted with that,” said Forshaw.

“Faf apologised to the referee after the game and hopefully that will be enough. It just hit us because he came on wanting to get some game time and then we lost another nine.

“We will wait for some clarification on that incident but we adapted well to the red card. It’s probably a good thing because losing a man meant we played some unstructured rugby.”

Despite fielding youthful side the hosts were extremely competitive throughout and grabbed the game’s first try when left-wing Luke Price scored as a result of a grubber kick from Dafydd Hughes.

But Sale’s forward dominance told, with Charnley and Webber both crossing from short range. Curry extended the visitors’ lead after Charnley sliced through the home side’s defence to put him clear.

Scarlets scrum-half Rees finished a wonderful team try on the stroke of half-time, meaning the visitors were 19-18 ahead at the interval.

Despite De Klerk’s two yellow cards, one for not retreating 10 metres, and the other for kicking the ball away, the visitors dominated with tries from Reed, Strauss and Langdon sealing the win.

“We had a really positive first half against a really strong Sale team,” said Scarlets’ Anglo-Welsh Cup head coach Euros Evans.

“In the second half their power game ground us down a bit. I am pleased with the commitment and effort of the players which was excellent again today and throughout the campaign.”

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