[Lord Elpus]

.......with a hamstring injury.......posted on X by rugbysalesharks

[SSR]

Great!

[DavenportSharky]

Starting XV:

15. Joe Carpenter, 14. Tom Roebuck, 13. Marius Louw, 12. Rekeiti Ma’asi-White, 11. Tom O’Flaherty, 10. George Ford, 9. Gus Warr; 1. Bevan Rodd, 2. Luke Cowan-Dickie, 3. Asher Opoku-Fordjour, 4. Ernst van Rhyn ©, 5. Ben Bamber, 6. Jacques Vermeulen, 7. Sam Dugdale, 8 Dan du Preez.

Replacements:

16. Nathan Jibulu, 17. Si McIntyre, 18. James Harper, 19. Reuben Logan, 20. Jos Gilmore, 21. Dom Hanson, 22. Ollie Davies, 23. Alex Wills.

Raffi and RDP out injured too
Asher back

[DavenportSharky]

HARLEQUINS V SALE SHARKS
Saturday 04 April (KO 20:00)
The Stoop, Twickenham
Premier Sports
STARTING XV:

15. Nick David (87)

14. Rodrigo Isgró (23)

13. Luke Northmore (96)

12. Bryn Bradley (27)

11. Cadan Murley (145)

10. Marcus Smith (190)

9. Stu Townsend (6)

1. Simon Kerrod (130)

2. Jack Walker (107)

3. Pedro Delgado (14)

4. Kieran Treadwell (24)

5. Elliot Williams (7)

6. Guido Petti Pagadizábal (13)

7. Will Evans (126)

8. Alex Dombrandt (C) (171)

IMPACT PLAYERS:

16. George Turner (9)

17. Will Hobson (31)

18. Ollie Streeter (8)

19. Chandler Cunningham-South (44)

20. Zach Carr (27)

21. Jack Kenningham (91)

22. Lucas Friday (14)

23. Jarrod Evans (46)

Unavailable: Tyrone Green (Hamstring), Ben Waghorn (Knee), Cameron Anderson (Knee), Harry Williams (Neck), Boris Wenger (Hamstring), Joe Launchbury (Quad), Harry Browne (Hamstring), Will Porter (Shoulder), Fin Baxter (Foot), Titi Lamositele (Foot), Tom Lawday (Hamstring), Oscar Beard (Shoulder), Ludo Kolade (Vision), Frank McMillan (Pubis), James Chisholm (Calf), Josh Bellamy (Thumb), Jordan Els (Achilles), Lucas Schmid (Ankle), Stephan Lewies (Shoulder), Cassius Cleaves (Back)

[DavenportSharky]

Harlequins v Sale Sharks
Referee: Luc Ramos (Fra)
ARs: Thomas Charabas (Fra) & Jonathan Gasnier (Fra)
TMO: Eric Gauzins (Fra)

[DavenportSharky]

Best odds to win
Quins 7/10
Draw 22/1
Sharks 13/10

[Olyy]

What is Raffi made out of?

No Burrow and Andrews so the only lock cover is an 8

Weird not seeing RdP in the side


Is it Jibulu or Caine on the bench?
Offy socials saying Jibulu

Asher back should mean we won't see a drop off when the bench front row is deployed

[DavenportSharky]

Yes Olyy it’s NJ starting. The Offy has altered its original lineup which included Raffi starting!

[Olyy]

Amazing how bad the men's side are at communications and how good the women's side's social media is!

[Surbiton_Shark]

Kinda weird that the team is posted...Raffi's hamstring goes and NJ appears as sub...

Assume Burrows is injured and Luke James has disappeared from the scene.....of course if Sale did what Quins and a few others do and announce who is injured that would make life for supporters a touch easier but never mind.

Safe travels to all fans attending the game!

[FarnhamShark]

According to the offy, Reuben Logan is taller and heavier than both EvR and Tom Burrow, so they obviously see him as cover at Lock. It would be nice to know the stats for Gilmore as well, but like a number of players listed, his height and weight are "n/a". Just reinforces the point about how bad the Men's side is at communicating.

[Olyy]

Low quality half of rugby but we have ourselves a comfortable lead - I say comfortable but I won't feel it until the final whistle, we've imploded far too many times before

Great to see Asher back but gutted to see Bev go off with what looks like an arm/wrist injury

SiMac a fine sub to come on but it'll test our depth in the coming weeks

[Olyy]

Unchecked head on head on AOF and he's off - hope it's just precautionary and not a broken jaw or anything, he didn't look comfortable

[Olyy]

Great to see Asher back but gutted to see Bev go off with what looks like an arm/wrist injury

And now LCD off with what looks like a similar injury - think Comms just said Rodd is a dislocated shoulder?

[Bucks1861]

As Andy Goode just said “thoroughly deserved as Sale bossed it from start to finish”

[Surbiton_Shark]

Phew! - great result. I thought we were going to throw it away - defence looked pretty knackered from about 50 mins to go. This is where Ford is in his element - he controlled it very nicely. I was a bit fearful we would just revert to aimless kicking but after 2 of them we just kept the ball.

Bamber is incredible

[Olyy]

Yeah, Bamber was quality - incredible engine on him to still be going that hard for the full 80

Interesting to see it was Vermeulen who went into the row when EvR went off for a HIA

TOF was very good as well barring the knock back for the try (though was a very tough over the head catch while moving away to get there so don't blame him too much)

Not a vintage performance, and we definitely came close to fluffing our lines, but still very nice to finally get a win under our belt

Losing LCD and Rodd not great - combine that with the Currys and who are our breakdown threats now?

[LJK]

Yes - squeaky bum time yet again at around 60 mins, but for once we controlled the lead well in the last 10 mins.
Think the return of the Forshaw defence is clear again.
Probably without LCD and Rodd and poss. AOF a difficult task next week just got much harder

[RuggerPleb]

<Shock> (From recent form) Must be because I renewed my season ticket today, the club knows it still has some support...

https://www.epcrugby.com/champions-cup/ ... e-to-watch


Away at Leinster or home to Edinburgh it seems.

[ejndavid95]

Having been at the game this evening I'm surprised by the optimism here, it was a very low quality game of rugby, which included the overall performance of the officials.

We controlled it for 50 minutes, thanks in part to Quins total lack of discipline/quality, but did somewhat have a wheels off moment thereafter where they looked to have all the momentum from 60 onwards.

Attack remains pretty turgid, defence gives up tries a lot easier nowadays...or so it seems, and I'm struck by our total lack of turnover threat at the breakdown. We've gone from prolific in that regard to non existent, what happened?!

Great to get the win but more injuries looked concerning, Jibulu still struggling with the arrows, GF not fluent in attack isn't a recipe for progressing further.

[SSR]

Only seen the highlights and the score, but commentators talking about even against the wind
in the first half, Sale were in the Quins 22 more than expected and took their points.
Looks like discipline and Fords kicking was the difference.
Always worrying when we are outscored in tries.
Injuries an even bigger worry.
Got to look forward to the infusion of new talent, especially in the backs.

[LJK]

You were there David95 but seems your opinion of Ford's attacking skills are opposed to most and the commentary team were purring about him. Now I realise they have to 'big up' any game and it was a pretty scrappy one, but think the ex players like Andy Goode and Chris Robshaw were pretty unanimous about GF.
Talking of commentators and TV... my usual beef about why they must keep talking and so often trot out meaningless stats about past performances. Think Martin Gillingham (?) last night takes the prize for this nonsense and even Andy Goode was getting fed up with him and said he needs to get a life!
It was great to hear so many Sale supporters there... they were making as much noise as the Quins supporters for much of the time, for perhaps understandable reasons. Very empty stadium.... possibly due to the silly ko. time....probably at the request of the great god of television

[Dave L]

https://archive.ph/hLswa

LCD and Bevan out for the season unfortunately. Broken wrist and badly dislocated shoulder.

No mention of Asher at least.

[RinTin]

This game was basically about who the skinniest kid at fat camp is; you may be the lightest there, but out in the real world it's a different story. Both teams would have been slaughtered playing most of the others in the play offs - it was just luck for both we ended up against each other.

We were very very good in the first half. Tom O Flaherty chased down Isgro which surprised me a lot. Genuinely forgot he actually has wheels. Carpenter very good in attack. Pack was very very good until the enforced changes. Front row gave us so much to be positive about.

We did all we could to lose it in the last 20 minutes I thought (fate or stupidity). From Gus Warr and DDP messing up certain tries (Warr pass out and DDP drop) to Wills giving the stupid penalty away for not releasing, Flats losing the high ball to allow Dombrandt in and Warr's lack of pace being exposed massively in defence, to injuries meaning all scrum dominance went and handling errors creeping in. Quins were almost breaking us at Will towards the end.

After the terrible season anyone should take this. Ironically, the injuries to the likes of Bevan, LCD, Ben Curry etc mean they won't be involved in the summer tours and we get them fresh for next season. Could actually help us a lot. Give the young lads a lot of minutes over the next few weeks, build some depth, keep the key players fit. Play for next season now.

[dinogyro]

It was great to hear so many Sale supporters there... they were making as much noise as the Quins supporters for much of the time, for perhaps understandable reasons. Very empty stadium.... possibly due to the silly ko. time....probably at the request of the great god of television

The West Coast train line wasn't running. I was excited to go to this, until I saw how many trains I would have to take to get there!

I thought GF was very good, but generally we played poorly. As said above, any decent team would have torn us apart. Great to see less kicking and more ball in hand play. Thought Louw and Rikky did well.