The furious Sale reaction to protestors invading Twickenham pitch
Beaten Sale have reacted furiously to the pitch invasion that took place midway through the first half of Saturday’s Gallagher Premiership final at Twickenham. The match was tied at six-all with play continuing on despite an injury to Saracens' Sean Maitland.
It was at this very moment that two Stop Oil protestors managed to evade the pitch-side security and they both dispersed orange dust before some players showed their displeasure, particularly Sale skipper Jono Ross who appeared as he if was on the verge of throttling one of the protestors.
In the end, the trespassing pair were dragged away much to the disgruntlement of the 61,875 attendance, with some of the crowd pelting the protestors with drink as they were led away down tunnels in opposite corners of the stadium.
When play did restart with a scrum on halfway, the Sharks were caught napping as Ben Earl motored down the blindside with Ross slow to react and a kick from the supporting Alex Goode generated the chaos that ended in a penalty try and Tom Curry being yellow carded for preventing Max Malins from scoring.
Sale reacted well to that concession, hitting back with a try in the 10-minute first-half spell that Curry was missing, and they were to eventually find themselves 23-25 ahead with 13 minutes of the final remaining before two Saracens tries clinched them the 35-25 win.
Sharks boss Alex Sanderson sidestepped directly blaming the concession of the penalty try and the Curry yellow card as the reason for their defeat, but skipper Ross, who was playing his final match before retirement, was still livid with the protestors when speaking at the post-match briefing. “I don’t agree with what they are doing,” he said about the Stop Oil campaign that has been gaining notoriety in recent months for its interventions at a variety of sports events.
“I don’t agree with it at all. I don’t want to get into it. I don’t agree with it. It’s completely against everything I believe in and then to come into sporting events and ruin sporting events week in, week out, I don't agree with it, I don’t agree with what they stand for. That is where I will leave that.”
Sanderson said: “I don’t understand why it did happen. Obviously, my reaction was, ‘What’s the next job? I can’t run on and throttle him myself. But it did create a break in the game and they [Saracens] scored off the back of it.
“I am not saying that is the game, but it just shows the intensity of concentration you need to be able to switch off and switch back on – and that (disruption) was certainly something unexpected that could have clouded our concentration.”
What was the verdict from the winners’ enclosure about the pitch invasion? “Probably a bit less technical than what you are trying to make out,” quipped Saracens captain Owen Farrell. “It was, ‘What the bloody hell is going on here?’
“Some people got pelted with I don’t what it was. Orange dust? I don’t know. We have seen it before. Not here, but I guess this is a stage for them to do what they have been doing. It wasn’t too long before the game got going again but yeah, it [the protest] was a bit different."
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Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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