78 min. Huge claim for Steward in midfield mean Leicester have the ball as we see the clock tick away. Can Leicester see this out with some slow phases?
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Leicester v Sale: Premiership rugby union semi-final – live | Premiership Key events 77 min. Chessum breaks free and gets Leicester inside the Sale ten. Tigers exactly where they want to be but Pollard misses the drop goal. Awful kick after some brilliant work up front. 75 min. Every Leicester whistle is earning a huge cheers from the crowd and now they’re able to get on the front foot after winning consecutive penalties to kick up field. 74 min. Massive turnover from the replacement from Ilione as Sale nudge towards the try line and Pollard is able to come back on. 72 min. Pollard will return shortly but he’ll be on the backfoot as Radwan takes out O’Flaherty in the air. Ford finds the corner from the penalty. Good chance for Sale, this. 70 min. Du Preez almost immediately gets Sale back on terms when Ma’asi-White shows quick hands to slip his teammate in on the right but a combination of Perese and Volavola put the Sharks into touch. Try! Leicester 22-16 Sale (Perese)68 min. He’s only just come on and Izzy Perese is on the scoresheet. Volavola slips in the Australian and he dashes away to the try line from the ten metre line. Conversion missed. Penalty! Leicester 16-16 Sale (Ford)66 min. Flawless from Ford and we’re all square. On comes Ben Youngs for Van Poortvliet. 66 min. Nicky Smith is pinged for not coming in straight and Ford will get a chance to tie the scores from the tee. 64 min. The game is stopped with Sale going forward as Pollard is called off for a head injury assessment. Volavola is on as temporary cover. 63 min. This is much more even now and in response to Sale’s resurgence Dan Cole comes on for Joe Heyes. 60 min. Leicester knock-on from the restart and Sale have a chance to start an attack from deep when Tigers infringe at the scrum. Try! Leicester 16-13 Sale (Du Preez)57 min. Sharks are back in this! They work the lineout well with the Curry brothers and when Ford finds Du Preez with quick hands he’s able to go under the posts amid a flurry of potential penalities. 56 min. Penalty to Sale after Montoya is pinged for a double play at the break down. Ford goes for touch. Sale need this to go. 54 mins. Sale have made a couple of changes. Raffi Quirke is off for Gus Warr and Asher Opoku-Fordjour has been replaced by WillGriff John. PENALTY! Leicester 16 - 6 Sale (Pollard)53 mins. This time Pollard is on target and Leicester have their ten-point advantage back. 52 mins. Pollard will get another go as Sale get pinged again. 51 mins. Leciester turn it over and win a scrum of their own. That leads to a penalty and Pollard will kick for the posts. The radar is off from the tee for the South African as his attemp drifts wide to the right. 48 mins. Pollard dinks a little kick over to the left and Kata gets their first but his off-load is put on the floor by Hassell-Collins who might have had a clear run to the line. Sale scrum on halfway. PENALTY! Leicester 13 - 6 Sale (Ford)47 mins. Ford knocks over his second from just outside the Leicester 22. They needed that. 46 min. That set-piece comes to little but Sharks go again and Quirke breaks the line. It’s the first time Sale have put Leicester under any consistent pressure and they earn a penalty. 44 min. Sale get a break as Tom Curry’s kick for touch takes a nick off a Leicester man and Sharks get a lineout in good position. 42 mins. The rain is coming down at Welford Road so expect handling issues. Good work from Curry at at breakdown and from the Sale put-in Reed is able to make good territory. Kick-off!Pollard thumps his restart deep and Sale are able to gather. Awful kick from the hand though and Leicester are immediately playing in Sale’s 22 from the lineout. Half-time: Leicester 13-8 SaleThat is the final action of the half and I’m off for a quick break. 40+ mins. Penalty for Leicester and Ben Curry gets told that is Sale’s last chance before a yellow. Tigers opt for a lineout, but can’t get the drive. Pollard fakes a drop goal and tries to find a gap but knocks on. 39 min. Montoya gets over the ball and wins the penalty. Sloppy stuff from Sale and from a good position for the visitors, Leicester now have the chance to get the final points of the half. 38 min. Pollard is winning the fly-half battle so far and earns a 50-22 with a piercing kick into space down the right flank. Sale defend well and earn a penalty, giving Ford a chance to find touch in Tigers’ territory. A minute or so to maybe get some points before half-time. 37 min. It’s not going Sale’s way at all. Ford gets a penalty chance to kick to touch and doesn’t get the depth he would want. From the lineout the Sharks edge forward but Cowan-Dickie is dragged into touch. 34 min. Sale overthrow the linout in good position on the Tigers’ ten metre line and Van Poortvliet makes a huge kick to pin the visitors back deep in their own territory. 32 min. Leicester give away a penalty inside their own for a hold-up in the maul. Ford will kick for the corner. Try! Leicester 13 - 3 Sale (Radwan)29 min. Leicester get away with what look like a couple of forward-looking passes as Kata thunders into the line and after Liebenberg breaks the linem Pollard is able to find Radwan with a cross kick. It isn’t the best kick in truth, but the wing dives forward and clings on to score his second try. Pollard though cannot convert. 26 min. Sale are being given no time on the ball as Leicester keep blitzing off the line. Another Sale handling error gives Leicester a scrum in their own territory. The home side are working very hard, can they maintain this intensity? 24 min. Sale secure the ball from kick-off and after a messy scramble out by touch on the Sharks left, Ben Curry makes a line break. His attempt at a hand-off goes to no one and Pollard is able to kick to touch. Try! Leicester 8 - 3 Sale (Radwan)22 min. Tigers get a penalty from the scrum but as it breaks down Radwan is left in acres on right. The wing cuts in as Sale shift over and darts back into the gap to score. Pollard misses the conversion. 21 min. From the kick-off, Sale a pinged for a knock-on and Leicester have the put-in inside the Sharks’ 22. PENALTY! Leicester 3 - 3 Sale (Ford)19 min. Distance is not a problem and we are level. 19 min. Scrum penalty to Sale! Ford is going for it from way downtown. 15 min. Leicester win another aerial battle and the ensuing ruck leads to a scrum for the hosts on halfway. Ben Curry with some fantastic work turns it over and this time it is Sale that get a scrum of their own, this one some five metres inside the Leicester half. 14 mins. Leicester getting the better of the collisions at the moment, they’re winning the ball in the air and not allowing Sale to get out. Rodd does well to win a turnover inside Sharks’ 22 that allows the men in blue to get on front foot. 11 mins. Pollard spots some space deep in Sale territory and takes aim with the boot. Great kick to put Sharks under pressure. The visitors go deep with the lineout and in the end some great defensive work from Tom Curry gets Sale off the hook after Ford failed to find touch with his clearance kick. PENALTY! Leicester 3 - 0 Sale (Pollard)8 mins. Tigers’ fly-half gets his side on the board by making a potentially tricky kick look straightforward. 7 mins. Leicester earn a penalty advantage when Opoku strays offside and after a couple of attempts to break the Sale line, Matthew Carley blows up to give Pollard a shot at the posts from wide left. 5 min. Leicester work that first scrum well and Pollard finds touch with a huge kick. Tigers pick-off of the Sale lineout and move the ball out to the left wing but are Hassell-Collins is bundled into touch. 2 mins. Ford’s opening kick was a good one and earned the Sharks a lineout deep in Leicester’s half but the home side stand up and eventually earn the put-in at the first scrum as Sale knock-on. Kick-off!Ford gets us underway with a kick up to Leicester’s 22. Here are today’s match officials: As with a few of Leicester’s big-name players, this is the last time Welford Road will see Michael Cheika in the stands as Leicester head coach. Ahead of kick-off he said the best way to sign off would be to extend his tenure with a trip to the Premiership final. He told TNT pre-match: “For me to re-pay the fans for the classy way they’ve treated me with a final in London is really all that been on my mind. “The fundamentals of the game are so important. These teams have played 25 times together by this stage of the season so the patterns are set, we’re pretty level in terms of the table. “Executing the fundaments are going to the key to winning this game. “The best thing we can do for a fan or player who is leaving, whether or not they are legends, is get the job done.” Looking for some pre-match reading? Check out Robert Kitson’s interview with Sale and England fly-half George Ford TeamsLeicester XV: Steward, Radwan, Kata, Woodward, Hassell-Collins, Pollard, Van Poortvliet; Smith, Montoya, Hayes, Henderson, Chessum, Liebenberg, Reffell, Cracknell. Replacements: Clare, Cronin, Cole, Rogerson, Ilione, Youngs, Volavola, Perese. Sale XV: Carpenter, Roebuck, Robert du Preez, Ma’asi-White, Reed, Ford, Quirke; Rodd, Cowan-Dickie, Opoku-Fordjour, Van Rhyn, Hill, Tom Curry, Ben Curry, Jean-Luc du Preez. Replacements: McElroy, McIntyre, John, Bamber, Dan du Preez, Warr, James, O’Flaherty. How do you see this one unfolding then readers? Drop me an email via the link at the top of the page. PreambleWe’ve seen this episode before. Back in 2023 Goerge Ford was described by Sale director of rugby Alex Sanderson as “a pocket of calm amid the chaos”, as the fly-haf guided Sale Sharks past Leicester in the Premiership semi-final. A repeat today would be another feather in the cap of a fine year for Ford, who was named in Premiership team of the season earlier this week and probably should have been in the Lions squad heading for Australia. The clash with Leicester, who feature the league’s second-highest points scorer in Handré Pollard, should produce tries. Across two league games already this season 142 points were shared, with one win apiece. The most recent of those was won last month by Leicester at Welford Road, where today’s game is taking place, a factor that perhaps tips the scales in the Tigers’ favour. Should they lose, this will be Ben Youngs and Dan Cole’s final matches for Leicester. The retiring pair start on the bench as Jack van Poortvliet and Joe Heyes come in, while Adam Radwan will play on the wing in place of Josh Bassett. Former England international Mike Brown has not been named in Leicester’s matchday squad and should his team lose his last minutes as a Tiger will have been against Newcastle Falcons in the last game of the regular season. For Sale it is positive news as they have Tom Roebuck and Tom Curry both available again. The England duo missed the final game of the regular season as the Sharks beat Exeter. Bath, another of Ford’s former clubs, await the winners of this tie in the final at Twickenham after the regular season table-toppers held their nerve against Bristol on Friday night. Ford has tasted defeat in a Premiership final for all three of the teams left with a possibility of winning this season’s showpiece fixture and would relish the chance to run the table against two of his former employers to ensure that this time he is not the one left standing when the music stops. Source link Posted: 2025-06-07 17:19:40 |
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