Hodgson was excellent from start to finish for Sale

Sale 32 (22)
Tries: Cueto, Lund
Con: Hodgson 2
Pens: Hodgson 4
Drop goals: Hodgson 2

Northampton 20 (10)
Tries: Lamont 2, Tupai
Con: Reihana
Pens: Reihana

Defending champions Sale secured their first win of the Premiership season as they saw off Northampton thanks to Charlie Hodgson's textbook display.

Hodgson's impeccable kicking and a clinical try from Mark Cueto helped Sale to a 22-10 half-time lead.

Paul Tupai's try shortly after the break helped Saints close to 22-15 soon after the break, but Magnus Lund's 54th-minute try took Sale clear.

Sean Lamont's last-gasp try, his second of the game, came too late for Saints.

With Jonny Wilkinson falling victim to yet another injury on Friday, Hodgson - who kicked 22 points - provided a performance to ease the worries of England supporters.

The fly-half's goalkicking ensured Sale's forward dominance was reflected on the scoreboard, while his ability to spark his backline kept Northampton on the back foot.

It was Hodgson who opened the scoring with a simple penalty after seven minutes, and Northampton's task was made all the harder by a silly sin-binning for Paul Tupai after a shoulder-barge on Sebastien Bruno.

Hodgson notched his second penalty to make it 6-0 before Reihana cut the gap with a kick of his own.

Sale's dominance was rewarded with Cueto's try on the right after multiple phases of possession, and with the points flowing from Hodgson's boot the home side quickly established a 22-3 lead.

But in the dying moments of the first half, Lamont cut an intelligent line off Carlos Spencer to score his side's first try.

Northampton scored the first try after the break to further cut the gap, with Tupai crossing in the corner after a feeble attempted tackle from Oriol Ripol.

And a dreadful decision by Sale's Chris Mayor - opting for glory with the unmarked Cueto outside him - further boosted Northampton's hopes.

But a fortunate try for Lund, after Reihana's kick was charged down, reopened Sale's commanding lead.

Four minutes later, Lund was sin-binned for a cynical killing of the ball in his own 22, but it made little difference.

Another Hodgson penalty took Sale further clear, and Lamont's second score was little more than consolation.

"I am pleased with the four points. It was important for us to win today.

"But it's clear we still need to improve a lot. We were better in the line-out and in the contact area than last week at Leicester, but we were not patient with the ball and Northampton played well.

"It's an improvement from last week but if we want to beat Worcester next week, we will need to improve a little bit more."

"We weren't good in the first half. We kept the ball on the field when we should really have made them earn their points.

"We gave them a lead, nearly reeled them back in and just as it looked like the balance was about to swing, we gave them another score.

"We got ourselves in a position where we could have genuinely challenged to win the game. But we handed them a lot of easy points."

Sale: Robinson; Cueto, Mayor, Bell, Ripol; Hodgson, Wigglesworth; Sheridan, Bruno, Evans; Jones, White; J Fernandez Lobbe, Lund, Chabal.
Replacements: Goana, Stewart, Day, Tait, Foden, Thomas, Taylor.

Northampton: Kydd; Lamont, Reihana, Quinlan, Diggin; Spencer, Robinson; Smith, Thompson, Barnard; D Browne, Short; Tupai, Fox, D Browne.
Replacements: Richmond, Budgen, Lord, Easter, Lewitt, Vass, Myring.