Sale 54, Blaydon 12

 

Blaydon were unable to build on last weeks dramatic late victory, going down heavily against a powerful Sale side in what was a first ever meeting between the two clubs.
The home side had a massive advantage in the forwards, driving Blaydon back at every scrum to create scoring opportunities at will with Andy Hughes and Dan Burchall crossing for the first 2 early on with 6 more to follow.
As half-time approached however Blaydon finally got their hands on the ball which they retained for 3 phases before second-rower James Zino dummied his way between the posts. Fly-half Ryan Foreman added the easy conversion to make the interval score-line of 35-7 slightly more respectable.
The turnaround made little difference to the balance of play but Blaydon did well to grab a second score when skipper Keith Laughlin was driven over wide out but this time Foreman’s conversion effort was off target.
Sale remained well on top to the end and with their fly-half Chris Johnson adding the extras to 7 of their tries took the final score over the 50 points mark, showing exactly why they are so close to the top of the table.

John Brennan