Sale Sharks 35 Leicester Tigers 25

You do not often see rugby players remonstrate after being substituted, but Freddie Burns made his views clearly known when he was taken off on Sunday. His was hardly a performance for the ages, but the fly-half had barely put a foot wrong and was frustrated when he was replaced after 51 minutes.

Steve Borthwick, Leicester’s head coach, said after the game that Burns was injured, but would not go into details. Whatever the reason, on came Jack van Poortvliet, a scrum-half by trade, to play at full-back. Bryce Hegarty moved to No 10. This is when things fell apart.

A 21-5 lead over Sale just before the hour ended in a defeat. The men in blue – wonderfully marshalled by AJ MacGinty in his 100th game for the club – roared back for a famous victory that scarcely looked on the cards. Leicester have now suffered back-to-back league defeats after winning 11 on the bounce.

Lood de Jager had spilt the opening kick-off and from that moment Sale handled the ball as if it were a wriggling eel. A mounting penalty count compounded matters as Burns won the territorial battle.

A MacGinty error led to the opening try. His misplaced chutzpah close to his own line led to a penalty won by Leicester. The ball was kicked into touch and Julian Montoya rounded off the driving maul.

Sale responded immediately. Dan du Preez at first receiver straightened and offered a pop off his shoulder for Luke James on the angle. The full-back rounded Leicester’s static defence to score unopposed.

Leicester hit back as Guy Porter collected just inside Sale territory and stampeded over a weak tackle. He then skipped past one defender and handed off another to score a try from nothing. Alex Sanderson, the Sale director of rugby, cut a forlorn figure after this move.

Leicester controlled the rest of the half and Burns’s penalty after 48 minutes opened a 16-point lead. But the tide turned when Ben Curry emerged from a morass of bodies to score from a fractured maul in the corner. MacGinty’s extras suggested there was still some bite in the Sharks.

“It wasn’t a half-time team talk about technicalities today,” Sanderson said. “It was, can we work with more intensity, can we run quicker, can we hit harder and win all those little battles? And forget the scoreline, because if we win those little battles, that will look after itself. They did that in the second half.”

The turnaround came into focus when substitute Arron Reed scored a wonderful solo try, racing away down the left. Moments later, Dan du Preez charged down a box kick and collected the bouncing ball to scamper home. MacGinty’s conversion nudged his team into the lead for the first time.

Montoya’s second try of the match was a repeat of his first, following another clinical line-out maul. But two MacGinty penalties and a runaway try from Tom Roebuck meant Leicester were denied a bonus point.

Borthwick refused to bemoan the absence of six stalwarts on England duty but will be concerned about the manner of this defeat and the uncharacteristic lapse.

“Its not something we’ve done regularly,” he said. “Sale played really well. The wind was a factor and we’ll look at how we could have managed that better. But there wasn’t a huge amount in the game. The effort of the players was magnificent. I asked them to play hard and they played hard again today.”

Borthwick’s opposite number was still incredulous after the match. “I’m really proud,” Sanderson eventually managed. “It’s not often games go that way. I’m dead impressed with the boys. We’ve tended to ebb away rather than grow when we get more fatigued and under stress. We want to be stronger for longer and this is the biggest test. They rose to it and that’s on them, not me.”

Match details

Scoring sequence: 0-3 Burns pen; 0-8 Montoya try; 0-10 Burns con; 5-10 James try; 5-15 Porter try; 5-18 Burns pen; 5-21 Burns pen; 10-21 Curry try; 12-21 MacGinty con; 17-21 Reed Try; 22-21 D du Preez; 24-21 MacGinty con; 24-26 Montoya try; 27-26 MacGinty pen; 35-26 Roebuck try.

Sale Sharks: L James; T Roebuck, R du Preez (S James, 58), R Janse van Rensburg, B McGuigan (A Reed, 52); AJ MacGinty, W Cliff (G Warr. 51); R Harrison (S McIntyre, 58), E Ashman (C Langdon, 51), C Oosthuizen (J Jones, 51), JL du Prees, L de Jager, J Ross (JP du Preez, 73), B Curry, D du Preez.
Leicester Tigers: B Hegarty; H Potter, M Scott (H Saumaki, 64), D Kelly, G Porter; F Burns (J van Poortvliet, 53), R Wigglesworth; J Whitcombe (F van Wyk, 64), J Montoya (N Dolly, 70), D Cole (N Leatigaga, 70), H Wells, C Green, G Martin (O Robinson, 73), R Reffell (H Liebenberg, 51), J Wiese.