Sale beat Gloucester to keep sixth spot in Aviva Premiership in sight

Josh Beaumont: Scored the decisive try as Sale beat visiting Gloucester

Sale recorded a highly-important 23-6 Aviva Premiership win over Gloucester at the AJ Bell Stadium on Sunday.

Tries from Johnny Leota and Josh Beaumont as well as 13 points from the boot of Danny Cipriani kept Sale’s chances of European Champions Cup qualification alive as they sit just one point behind sixth-placed Wasps in the Premiership standings with four rounds remaining.

It was a tough first half at the AJ Bell, with both sets of forwards taking turns to dominate the collision areas. Sale scored the only try of the first period, but Gloucester were kept in the game by the boot of James Hook.

After a spell of the packs cancelling each other out, Hook was given a shot at goal, and he duly opened the scoring in the 15th minute.

Sale came back from that point, and were camped deep inside the Gloucester half with a penalty advantage. Johnny Leota ensured that they would not need the penalty as he burrowed his way through a ruck to plant the ball at the base of the post for his side's first try of the day. Cipriani converted as his side took a 7-3 lead.

When Sale were penalised shortly thereafter at a ruck, Hook stepped up to reduce the lead to one point.

There were seven minutes remaining before half-time when Hook's kick sailed through and the defence of both teams looked to ensure that the score would remain that way at the break.

But on the stroke of the referee's whistle Gloucester conceded a penalty to give Cipriani an easy opportunity to extend the home side’s lead going into the break.

When the teams came back, Sale were better at playing the territory game as Cirpriani added two more penalties before Josh Beaumont scored the decisive try.

Chris Cusiter broke and drew the drifting defenders wide before popping to Tom Arscott on the switch, with Arscott almost making it all the way to the try-line before being brought down right under the poles.

The ball was quickly recycled and passed to Cipriani, who drew the covering defence perfectly before delicately passing to Beaumont to score untouched. With the Cipriani conversion it was 23-6 to the home side.

With 14 minutes remaining Nathan Hines was shown a yellow card after repeatedly finding himself on the wrong end of the referee's whistle at the ruck and maul, but the visiting side were unable to take advantage of the extra man, as they failed to register any points while Hines was on the sidelines.

With four minutes remaining Cipriani was shown a yellow card for a professional foul as Sale saw the rest of the game out without their fly-half, but still Sale did not concede in the second period as they secured a vital win that keeps them within touching distance of the all-important sixth place.