In a tense match, the power of Sale was too much for Chester to handle under the lights at Heywood Road. The home side showed lots of promise and with three tries disallowed, there could have been a case to say this should be a runaway score. Chester however were tough opponents as they were last year and this game showed why they’re always a threat. Chester battered on the door of Sale for long periods of the match but the home team were resilient and kept Chester to one try.
The two main takeaways from this new look team that Sale fielded, are that we have a very powerful scrum even with Neil Briggs and Simon Griffiths missing from the line up and the pace throughout the team is impressive.
We also seemed to have unearthed a few youth players this season with pace spare and who play without fear.
The one big area of concern was the penalty count. We seemed to attract penalties for a variety of things and if Chester had used the prolific boot of Liam McGovern, we may have had a very different game.
The highlights below include the controversially disallowed try for obstruction, which we’ve slowed down. This might show a clearer view of why the referee blew up at that point.