SANDERSON: ‘THAT’S ALL I WANTED FOR CHRISTMAS’
Sale director of rugby Alex Sanderson speaking to TNT Sports: “That’s all I wanted for Christmas. Not just the result, but how the lads went about it. How physical they were, how hard they worked. How much they enjoyed it. It felt like we lifted some shackles off today, talked about throwing some punches, metaphorically obviously, on Boxing Day.
“And they did. That try after half-time was one of the better ones we scored all year. A lot of things we can celebrate, after being teetotal yesterday.
“It doesn’t get any easier, but I love that part of it. You have to find parts you enjoy in the losing to get back on top. And what we’ve got to do now is back it up. To be the team we want to be, we’ve got to back it up away from home against a very good Bristol team. But we’ll celebrate that first, and then we’ll get on to Bristol.
“If we’ve got ambitions, we’ve got to go down there and, not do a job, but be really competitive and give ourselves a chance of winning that game. Come away with some points at least.
“They’ve won their last four or five games and they were phenomenal against Quins last week. You’ve got to find a way to shut them down defensively speaking, and then attack them.
“We needed a big performance from some of ur experienced players. and there was a few that came back today and they all look like they haven’t missed a beat.
“George Ford, Bevan Rodd, Joe Carpenter, Sam Dugdale off the bench. There’s a lot of players that could have walked off with that MVP medal.”