White Takes the Sale Charge to Tired Bristol

Sale, with four games left of their regular season last night lifted themselves back into a play-off position, finally overcoming a huge dose of West Country cussedness with three second-half tries. It took 50 minutes for the game to wake up after a pointless first half, but when the alarm finally went off there were three tries in 18 minutes, the best of the lot being Ben Foden's dancing run down the left wing, the Sale full-back, soon to be a Northampton scrum-half, taunting outstretched Bristol arms to go over at the posts.

Earlier their captain, Jason White, had been confident enough to ignore an overlap outside him to put Sale's first points on the board and Neil Brew got some reward for Bristol's efforts when he seized on to a loose ball 30 meters out, leaving the cover for dead. Chris Jones completed the Sale try count, but there was still enough fight in the Bristol dog to deny them what would have been a valuable bonus point. They even grabbed one themselves when David Lemi ran around a static defence to score, but Sale have now won their last four matches.

As Philippe Saint-André, Sale's director of rugby, said later: "In the second half we showed some good things, but in those last 10 minutes we did not have enough ball to score the fourth try and it's going to be tight. I hope we don't need a bonus point to get into the Heineken Cup."

He also took a small dig at Foden's decision to move south looking for a regular berth at No9. "He could be the England full-back," said Saint-André.

Bristol, their season over, are keen on using the "dead" matches remaining to bring more spark into a game often dominated by their strong, if elderly pack. Charlie Hodgson pinned the home side back with a couple of inch-perfect efforts that made the best of what wind there was. He was also pretty handy at offloading to Mark Cueto under the posts, the Sale and England wing looking to be home and dry until Dan Ward-Smith formed a one-man brick wall.

Bristol L Arscott; T Arscott, Higgitt (Eves, 65), Brew, Lemi; Barnes (Strange, 65), Perry (Thomas, 74); Crompton (Bracken 69), Linklater (Regan, 69) , Hobson, Winters, Hohneck, Salter (capt), El Abd (Budget, 72), Ward-Smith(Blowers, 65).

Tries Brew, Lemi Con Barnes, Strange Pen Barnes.

Sale Foden; Cueto (MccAlister, h-t), Bell, Seveali'i, Ripol (Kuadey, 73); Hodgson, Wigglesworth (Cliff, 78); Sheridan, Bruno (Briggs, 65), Turner (Roberts, 75) I Fernández Lobbe (Cobain, h-t), Cox, White (capt), Jones, J Fernández Lobbe (Lund, 74).

Tries White, Foden, Jones. Cons Hodgson 3 Drop goal Hodgson.

Ref T Spreadbury (Avon).

Attendance 8,178.