Late Jono Ross try helps Sale progress past Bristol in epic encounter

Sale hit hard, hit often, and occasionally hit high. Their reward, having soaked up the self-inflicted damage caused by one red card and two yellows, is progress to the last eight of the Champions Cup. Arron Reed was sent off in the first half, Faf de Klerk and Nick Schonert were shown yellow cards either side of half-time, but the Sharks’ physicality and a late try by the captain, Jono Ross, proved enough to edge them past Bristol.

An opening flurry of box kicking had suggested both teams would opt to eliminate risk as far as possible, but Sale’s scrummaging strength – combined with the incessant prompting of De Klerk – began to punch holes in Bristol’s defence. The Springboks scrum-half, rumoured to be heading for Japan when he leaves Sale in the summer, stole down the blindside with an opportunistic run before the Sharks hooker Akker van der Merwe sprinted on to kick ahead, straight down the middle, only to be kept out by some desperate Bristol defending.

A smart 50-22 kick by the England No 9, Harry Randall, helped to arrest Sale’s momentum and, although the hosts spurned that opportunity, which was the first time they had threatened the opposing try-line, Jake Kerr soon bundled over thanks to a pop pass by the Bears wing Luke Morahan. The try was chalked off for a knock-on after a TMO check but, at the same time, De Klerk was sent to the sin bin for an early tackle on Fitz Harding. Callum Sheedy knocked over the conversion to open the scoring.

Some lightning-fast competition at the breakdown by the prop Bevan Rodd allowed Rob du Preez to level it with a penalty at 3-3 and, when De Klerk emerged from the sin bin a few minutes later, it was Sale and their fearsome set of forwards in the ascendancy. Nathan Hughes was