Late Danny Cipriani penalty secures Bath a draw in thriller against Sale

This utterly enthralling match can be bluntly characterised as a contest between Bath’s free-flowing, offloading ambition and Sale’s Springboks-style crushing power. It is a touch more complicated than that, of course, but in searching for their third straight win, Bath spent much of the afternoon trying to prove that brawn can be bypassed by skill and pace.

In the end, when Faf de Klerk’s last-ditch penalty faded inches wide, there was nothing to choose between them. Perhaps that was right. Arguably, neither team deserved to lose such a scintillating game. Sale’s hopes of the playoffs took a dent as De Klerk’s kick sailed wide, while Bath remain stuck at the bottom of the table despite Sam Underhill’s two tries on his return from Six Nations duty with England.

The early signs had been ominous for Neal Hatley’s side: although Rob du Preez missed an early penalty, it wasn’t long before the influential Bath No 8, Nathan Hughes, was shown a yellow card for a high tackle on Arron Reed. De Klerk had been getting his hands on the ball regularly early on and Sale, as a result, took control. The Springboks No 9 injected pace around the fringes and kept the Bath defence honest with some searching box-kicking. After a powerful drive in the corner, Sam James fed Luke James and he stepped inside to crash over under the posts.

But Sale would not have it all their own way. A sublime one-handed offload by the young Bath lock, Ewan Richards, to Underhill rather summed up the host’s approach and they grew in stature when Hughes returned from the sin bin. Hughes was denied a try for a knock-on at the previous ruck but happily from a Bath perspective, Underhill was soon bludgeoning his way over the try-line, and Danny Cipriani converted to