Sale Sharks went from heroes to zeroes on Saturday, following up their Kings of the North tournament victory with a crushing defeat away to Saracens.
Sharks have not beaten Saracens at Allianz Park since their title-winning season in 2006, and a decade on they do not yet look like a side that will be able to repeat the feat.
Director of Rugby Steve Diamond admitted that his side were second best in all departments.
“We were comprehensively beaten in all areas and we are very disappointed,” he said.
“We’ve all been here before; we’ll have a look at it and work hard in training, starting on Monday.”
His team’s only points came courtesy of Danny Cipriani’s boot, as he converted a solitary penalty to prevent his side suffering a total whitewash.
Sharks conceded five tries in the match and failed to score any points in the second half.
“We couldn’t recover from that first 25-30 minutes,” said Diamond.
“We just made error after error, penalty after penalty, and Tom Arscott dropping the ball over the try line with the last play of the game just summed the day up unfortunately.”
The pragmatic Diamond offered full credit to Saracens for their performance and suggested the defeat was a ‘reality check’ for his team.
Looking ahead to Sharks’ first home fixture he warned: “We have a massive test against Worcester on Friday night.”
The Warriors marked their return to the Aviva Premiership with a last-gasp win over Northampton Saints at the weekend.
“They proved that if you turn up with desire and enthusiasm and a game plan you can beat anyone and we didn’t do that against Saracens,” added Diamond.
Image courtesy of Sale Sharks via YouTube, with thanks.
