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Mike Phillips has urged Sale Sharks to take a big step forward when they welcome three-time winners Toulon to the AJ Bell Stadium in the European Rugby Champions Cup. - 20/10/2016 10:07
Mike Phillips has urged Sale Sharks to take a big step forward when they welcome three-time winners Toulon to the AJ Bell Stadium in the European Rugby Champions Cup.
The Sharks lost their Pool 3 opener against the Scarlets 28-11, while their French opponents saw their proud unbeaten record in top-tier European competition ended by Saracens.
Defeat in west Wales was Sale’s 12th in a row in the Champions Cup and the last time they met Toulon they were the victims of a 62-0 hiding.
Scrum-half Phillips, who spent five years playing in France before moving back to the UK this summer, is fully aware of the power and ability of Toulon’s star-studded squad, and he has warned his team-mates they will face the consequences unless they turn in a much-improved performance.
“This is a massive fixture for us, there were some positives in the Scarlets game and we have a good home record so hopefully we can do well,” said the former Wales international.
“Their result last weekend will not have helped us and you know from looking at their squad that they are a team full of stars. It is a great test for us and a chance for us to show what we can do and hopefully we can play better than we did against the Scarlets. We will see.
“But there is a lot of experience in our team and you have to be clinical, there is a great bunch of boys, there are leaders here. We are better than we showed against the Scarlets and we need to put things right this week.
“Every game is tough but it is a great competition to be involved in, we need to win our home games and see what we can do in the remaining games away from home.”
Match Facts
- These sides have met just twice before, in the pool stage in 2012/13, with the TOP 14 side coming out on top in both games.
- Toulon’s 62-0 win against Sale in their most recent encounter remains their biggest in the Champions Cup as well as Sale’s heaviest defeat in the tournament.
- Sale have lost their last four Champions Cup home games against French opposition, this after winning four in a row at home before that.
- Toulon have won four of their six away games against Premiership opposition in the Champions Cup.
- Sale have lost their last 12 European Cup games, these defeats coming by an average margin of 21 points.
Toulon made the most of the fifth minute sin-binning of Magnus Lund to plunder 15 points that ultimately earned them a gritty win over Sale Sharks. - 21/10/2016 21:47
Toulon made the most of the fifth minute sin-binning of Magnus Lund to plunder 15 points that ultimately earned them a gritty win over Sale Sharks.
Lund saw yellow for a no-arms, late tackle on opposite number Juan Martin Fernandez-Lobbe and no sooner had he departed than Leigh Halfpenny stuck the first points with a penalty. Three minutes later back row man Charles Ollivon blasted through the short-handed home defence for the opening try.
Halfpenny had no problem with the conversion and then the Wales and British & Irish Lions full back ran in a second try. This time it was a cross-kick from Francois Trinh-Duc that set-up the try as Byron McGuighan found himself faced with three Toulon players.
Halfpenny couldn’t add the touchline conversion from the left, and went on to miss a 44 metre penalty in the second half, but the three-time champions had got off to the kind of start new head coach Mike Ford had asked for following the poor opening in the Round 1 defeat at home against Saracens.
But Toulon weren’t able to build on their fast start and instead it was the courageous hoe side that came rushing back into the contest. No sooner had Toulon skipper Duane Vermeulen been sent to the sin-bin for a cynical trip in open play than wing Paulo Odogwu ran in his first Champions Cup try to cut the gap to 10 points.
That’s how it stayed up to the break and throughout the whole of the second half. As well as Halfpenny’s long range miss, Will Addison was also off target for Sale with a kickable penalty.
The win for Toulon keeps them in the ix in Pool 3 with back-to-back games against the Scarlets to come in December. Two successive defeats for Sale will make it difficult for them to progress, especially with successive games against reigning champions Saracens to come.
Sale scrum half Peter Stringer made his 101st appearance in the European Cup at the end of a day in which he had attended the funeral of his former Munster and Ireland team mate Anthony Foley. There was a minute’s silence in memory of Foley before the kick-off.
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