'Such a score is not acceptable for a team that has ambitions'

Sale boss Alex Sanderson insists he cannot wait to face Toulouse at home after his team’s one-sided 45-19 defeat in the Heineken Champions Cup pool game at the Stade Ernest-Wallon.

Toulouse racked up a bonus-point victory in emphatic fashion against the English side, crossing for six tries and being awarded a penalty try.

“Toulouse are probably the best team in the game and we let them do too much today,” said Sanderson.

“We have work to do, but I think we can do it. I can’t wait to play them again in Manchester on a cold and rainy afternoon.

“We will have world-class players who will be back and we have to accept defeat, but I think we are better than this score.

“Such a score is not acceptable for a team that has ambitions.”

Sale’s indiscipline cost them and they played with 14 men for 30 minutes of this contest, with hooker Akker Van Der Merwe, full-back Byron McGuigan and wing Tom O’Flaherty all shown yellow cards.

But Toulouse had full-back Thomas Ramos shown a red card for a headbutt in the 80th minute when Sale thought they had scored a try.

Antoine Dupont, the Toulouse skipper, crossed for two tries for his side but refused to get carried away with a performance that blew Sale away.

“The conditions were perfect for playing and it was a very positive game, but we have to be careful, we have only played two matches out of four,” said Dupont.

“We have started our competition well, but there are still two important matches to try to be at our best and have a good draw for the final stages.

“In view of Sale’s game last weekend (39-0 victory against Ulster), it would have been presumptuous to talk about attacking bonus points before the game.

“We have not always had so much offensive performance. We have already scored a lot of tries several times this season, but it hadn’t always been very structured, we had trouble finding each other. This is what is positive today.

“We were able to be pragmatic and score on turnovers but also hold the ball and be quite good on our offensive game system.”