Bath hit back to grind out bonus-point win at Sale
Alfie Barbeary's late try secured victory for a much-changed Bath as they hit back from a 19-7 half-time deficit to inflict a ninth Prem defeat on Sale. After Dan Frost's opening try for Bath, Sale responded and, aided by the visitors' ill discipline, scored three times against 14 men through Tom O'Flaherty, Rob Du Preez and Luke Cowan-Dickie to lead 19-7 at half time. Bath levelled with tries from Louie Hennessey and Ethan Staddon after the break, and the two sides then traded blows as Sale's Tom Roebuck and Bath's Bernard van der Linde went over.
Barbeary won it when he dived over late on as the Sharks' defence could not hold out under concerted Bath pressure. The victory was justification for Bath head coach Johann van Graan's decision to rotate his squad, with only three starters remaining from the side that beat Saracens 62-15 last time out. Quins end losing run and hit Bristol's top-four hopes They started brightly, with Sale showing stern defence to keep the visitors at bay.
At the moment they switched off, with forwards painfully slow to get back into position, Bath took advantage and Frost pirouetted around George Ford on the tryine to score. However, the champions let themselves down in the first half with kicking errors, a succession of set-piece penalties and two yellow cards, which tilted the balance in Sale's favour. First, Joe Cokanasiga was sin-binned for a deliberate knock-on and almost immediately the staff shortage told, as the Sharks moved the ball quickly through the backline and Du Preez's long pass found O'Flaherty in acres of space on the left to score.
Then, Santiago Carreras - in at fly-half for Finn Russell, and battling a strong headwind in the first half - sent a goalline kick out on the full, and Sale scored from the resulting five-metre scrum, although it needed an intervention from the TMO to decide that Du Preez had touched down in a mess of bodies. Just moments after Bath were restored to 15 men, Frost then carried the can for his team's repeated penalty calls and had to spend either side of half time in the bin. Luke Cowan-Dickie then piled over to score his 44th Prem try, pulling level with Harry Thacker for most scored by a hooker in the league.
But Bath responded with two tries in the first 10 minutes of the second half. Louie Hennessey celebrated his 22nd birthday by scoring, before Ethan Staddon went over after a quickly-taken penalty, which caught Sale off guard. Sale, though, remained resilient and Tom Roebuck arrived from deep to collect a pass on the wing and run over for his sixth try of the campaign.