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If this curious Investec Champions Cup tie would demonstrate anything it was who had the desire, the fight and the heart to salvage their season. Harlequins and Sale Sharks are dead and buried in the Gallagher Prem, left with only this European run to extend.
So who really wanted it? Ultimately, it was Sale, who completed a gritty smash-and-grab raid — and a rare last-16 away win — to progress to a quarter-final next weekend against, in all likelihood, Leinster, unless Edinburgh cause a huge upset on Sunday.
In perhaps classic style, Harlequins became angriest only when the game was nearly impossible to win as Chandler Cunningham-South and Alex Dombrandt showed admirable defiance, scoring three tries between them to turn Sale’s 19-0 lead into a nippier 26-17 with ten minutes to go.
However, Sale showed enough nous to hold on, even if they had a late Dan du Preez try ruled out, and had to scramble as Cunningham-South burst for the line at the end.
A pocket of their supporters roared them home with a rendition of “na-na-na-na Sale!” to the tune of Hey Jude as the clock ticked down to their victory, but their team had played no classic notes. They just did what they had to do to beat another side scuffling for form. George Ford’s 16 kicked points were the difference. Alex Sanderson, Sale’s director of rugby, said: “He’s the best in the world at building a score, and in knockout rugby that’s all important.”
Gallingly, the match was played in front of a practically half-empty Stoop. Before kick-off nearly 6,100 tickets remained unsold. So, despite the fireworks, it felt like a Prem Cup match for the kids, not a do-or-die European Cup knockout tie. Most of the first half made those who had stayed at home look smug.
A low-quality match, pockmarked by errors, started with Sale dropping the kick-off and continued with both sides’ backs dropping balls, scrums collapsing and lineouts wobbling.
Cowan-Dickie burrows over for his first try after a Sale maul took him to the trylineBen Whitley/PA
Dombrandt was held up, too hasty in his efforts to score with a tapped penalty, and Jacques Vermeulen dropped one over the line at the other end, just after Ford had hit a post with a penalty. Nothing stuck.
Harlequins, in their defensive desperation, gave away eight first-half penalties, which led to a yellow card for Will Evans and all of Sale’s first-half points (three kicked goals from Ford and a Luke Cowan-Dickie maul try, which Ford converted). The England prop Bevan Rodd appeared to badly injure a shoulder amid all this, and the Harlequins centre Luke Northmore sustained a concussion. Both departed before half-time.
Smith gets away from Rekeiti Ma’asi-White and Marius Louw as Harlequins try to fight backBen Whitley/PA
One moment to please the smattering of home fans was quickly snuffed out. Elliot Williams, the 18-year-old lock, made a great galloping interception from a Gus Warr pass, which led to Nick David diving in on the other wing, but the try was rightly cancelled by the television match official as Tom Roebuck had piled David into touch.
It felt like more of the premium combat happened elsewhere across the Champions Cup weekend, despite the premium prices (fans paid up to £89 for tickets) here.
Cunningham-South crosses for Harlequins’ first try to get his side on the scoreboardAndrew Fosker/Shutterstock
Ford quickly made it 19-0 to Sale after the break, with Harlequins offside again. Either side of Cowan-Dickie’s second maul try, before the hooker went off injured, replacement Cunningham-South took a snorting score down the left, and Dombrandt claimed two tries of his own for Harlequins, the second following a neat cross-kick from Jarrod Evans after Jack Kenningham had returned from the sin-bin.
That raised them, and the sparse Stoop crowd, but Marcus Smith took only one of the conversions, so the two scores Harlequins needed to win proved a bridge too far. Du Preez’s drop over the line took away Sale’s clinching moment, but they had done their damage in the first half.
Harlequins: N David; R Isgró, L Northmore (J Evans 18), B Bradley, C Murley; M Smith, S Townsend (L Friday 65); S Kerrod (O Streeter 69), J Walker (G Turner 50), P Delgado (W Hobson 45), K Treadwell (C Cunningham-South 41), E Williams, G Petti (Z Carr 55), W Evans (J Kenningham 43), A Dombrandt. Sin-bin Evans (32), Kenningham (54).
Sale Sharks: J Carpenter (A Wills 71); T Roebuck, M Louw, R Ma’asi-White, T O’Flaherty; G Ford, G Warr (D Hanson 79); B Rodd (S McIntyre 25), L Cowan-Dickie (J Gilmore 71), A Opoku-Fordjour (J Harper 52), E van Rhyn (R Logan 73), B Bamber, J Vermeulen, S Dugdale (N Jibulu 55), D du Preez.
Referee L Ramos (Fra).