Ulster 22 Sale Sharks 11 AFTER SIX DEFEATS in seven games and having trailed 11-8 to the Sale Sharks heading into the final quarter at Kingspan Stadium, Ulster were staring another costly home loss and an early European exit right in the face.
Perhaps with a point to prove after failing to make Andy Farrell’s Six Nations squad, Ulster were led by Nick Timoney and they had led at the break through a Rob Lyttle try and Nathan Doak’s penalty, but they quickly fell behind early in the second half through Ben Curry’s finely-taken score shortly after Doak was sin-binned.
But slowly Ulster started to gain a foothold and they were rewarded when they turned down a kick for goal and went for the corner instead, a crafty snipe from Doak leading to Bevan Rodd going off his feet trying to rescue the situation at the try line and, as a result, the England loosehead headed to the sin-bin for ten minutes.
The scrum-half was binned shortly after the restart for blocking a pass off a maul illegally to set up Sale’s go-ahead try, a beautifully worked move from Ewan Ashman and Curry off a line-out seeing the former set up the latter to crash over in the corner.