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McGuigan carries Sale past 14-man Perpignan
By Ben Spratt
Byron McGuigan scored a hat-trick as Sale Sharks came through a hot-tempered European Challenge Cup opener at Perpignan with a 41-24 triumph.
A manic opening 20 minutes saw three tries and a red card for Perpignan's Manu Leiataua that had the home fans up in arms, before McGuigan got Sale over the line after the break.
The Scotland star had opened the scoring seven minutes in, before Pierre Lucas brought the hosts level and Leiataua was then dismissed for leading with the arm on Rob Webber.
Amid a hostile atmosphere, Webber immediately pressed home the advantage but the Sharks scored only once more before the break, through Rohan Janse van Rensburg, as a stream of penalties kept Perpignan within touch.
But after a tight start to the second half with the teams level at 19-19, Luke James went over and the floodgates opened for McGuigan to score twice more and seal his hat-trick, having initially been denied a third try moments earlier.
There was time for Genesis Mamea to cross for Perpignan in the final seconds, but it offered little consolation to incensed home fans.
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Latest Comments
I read some of the online comments on this and their were thoughtless and veering to misogyny.
As well as the pay gap women tend to recover quickly from the emotional intensity of matches. The match is over they shake hands and they can get quickly over a loss. THis doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.
Many men tend to view rugby as a test of manhood. They are aggressive, and take a big loss about as well as they would take a castration.
To judge women against men in this way is obviously stupid. The Welsh team are trying to promote publicity for the sport as well as trying to win matches. Suling for months wont attract girls to the support, no matter how much men online demand a period of self flagellation.
Go to comments“bring in a double bonus point instead” I don't think this is a great idea. We need the premiership to be a breeding ground for test match players. If we try to turn it into a defense optional try fest, we're going to come unstuck. It's not like teams really need an incentive to score more tries once they get to 4 tries.
England will no doubt benefit from more highly skilled attacking players (assuming they allow them to play with some autonomy) but test matches are rarely high scoring affairs. It's good that our players are becoming more skilled, we've long played second fiddle in those stakes to the SH (and still do) but the players also need to learn how to grind out gnarly wins. The Premiership is already a very high scoring league, we don't need to push it any further.
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