Sale would have been very keen to avenge the previous results having lost all three previous meetings between the sides and it was the visitors who drew first blood, through a Robins penalty on 16 minutes (0-3).

The Lions responded well though and when Joe Brock received a goal line drop out the ball was fed wide to Mali Satala who found Harry Palmer back on the inside to score. Bouchier converted before adding a penalty to extend the lead (10-3).

The remainder of the half belonged to Sale though. The Lions back three were struggling to field the contested box kicks and Sale converted these territory gains in to points through two scores from centre Roberts, crashing through the Lions midfield on both occasions. Albeit through some relatively soft would-be tackles. Robins converted both scores for a 10-17 half time lead.

Sale continued their dominance at the start of the second period and two driving maul tries, from Brown and then Longstaff, were followed by a score for second row Mintern who crashed over from close range on 57 minutes to give the visitors a healthy lead (10-32).

The final quarter saw the Lions hit back with three scores of their own though. Firstly Charlie Davies made a dent off a scrum move and found Jamel Hamilton with an offload to put his fellow centre over. This was followed quickly by Harry Palmer putting his second row partner Ben Almond under the sticks with a nice short ball. Bouchier converted both to reduce the arrears (24-32).

Another maul try for Sale on 70 minutes, a second for Longstaff, sealed the win for the visitors but a fourth successive conversion miss from Robins meant a converted score would still earn the Lions two bonus points (24-37).

With time up the Lions launched one final attack and after a number of phases Jamel Hamilton found Joe Brock back on the inside, who in turn passed to former Sale man Jordan Tebbatt to score the bonus point try under the posts. Bouchier secured the losing bonus point with the easy conversion.

FT 31-37

Head coach Gareth Collins commented: ''From the position we were in, it took some effort for the boys to find solutions. Unfortunately our own errors gave the Sale pack too many maul opportunities and that was the difference. But I'm really pleased with how we stuck to our attacking principles though and eventually they got us two points that could be huge in terms of survival.''