Harlequins head coach Jason Gilmore told BBC Radio Manchester:
“Fair play to Sale. They got themselves back into the game with their set-piece but I’m really proud of the boys’ efforts up here. I’m just happy for the boys that they got some reward out of their work.
“If you’re prepared to go to dark places for us and win those collisions, then you’re going to get selected. If you’re dipping your toe in one week and then not the next, then we can’t tolerate that.
“You can’t be up one week and then down the next week like we had last week. Performance will dictate the shirts.”
Sale director of rugby Alex Sanderson said:
“We were chasing the game all day. The fight’s in them clearly and it’s the second week they’ve found a way to win.
“They’ve had to manage the way through games, problem-solve and come up with solutions and that’s really rewarding.
“I’m really, really proud of that but we’re still not where we want to be in terms of performance because that [chasing the game] won’t be good enough against Glasgow next week. We know that – but we’ll take this win.
“If you can win playing badly, then that’s a good sign. It’s up to us to step up, it’s all within our hands and our capabilities. That’s the exciting bit, isn’t it?”
Sale: Carpenter; O’Flaherty, Marchant, Lozowski, Reed; Ford, Warr; N Smith, Jibulu, Opoku-Fordjour, van Rhyn (c), Bamber, Lawes, Tshiunza, Canakaivata.
Replacements: Cowan-Dickie, McIntyre, Francis, Dugdale, Hanson, Louw, Loganimasi.
Harlequins: Furbank; Green, Northmore, Bradley, Murley (c); M Smith, Porter; Hobson, Riley, Kerrod, Dun, Treadwell, Kenningham, Driscoll, Cunningham-South.
Replacements: Walker, Johnson-Holmes, Streeter, Petti, Schmid, Friday, Beard, Isgro.
Referee: Christophe Ridley.