 Harlequins halt a charge from Sale and England wing Mark Cueto |
Harlequins (15) 27
Tries: McMullen, Strettle, Monye, Williams
Cons: Jarvis 2
Pens: Jarvis
Sale (20) 28
Tries: Cox, Ripol, Martens
Cons: Larrechea 2
Pens: Larrechea 3
Harlequins are still looking for their first win of the season after Sale snatched victory in the EDF Energy Cup.
Sale led 20-15 at the break after Sean Cox and Oriol Ripol replied to tries from Craig McMullen and David Strettle.
Ugo Monye put Quins ahead but Sale took a winning lead through the boot of Daniel Larrachea, who kicked 13 points, and a try from Sililo Martens.
Tom Williams scored for Quins in injury time but Adrian Jarvis missed the conversion to win the match.
Harlequins director of rugby Dean Richards:
"We scored four tries to three and played a hell of a lot of rugby and should have come away with the win. "But we missed a lot of points with the boot and gifted them two soft tries but it was a better performance and we are starting to play better rugby."
Richards refused to blame Adrian Jarvis for missing 13 points, including a conversion which would have given Quins victory.
"I would never blame him. We scored four tries and he was instrumental in all of them. He's improving with every game.
"With the amount of opportunities we have we should have scored a couple more tries."
Sale director of rugby Philippe Saint-Andre:
"We've come here and changed a lot of players, a lot of young kids played and we looked OK when we had the ball. "When you change nine or 10 players it's difficult and the defence was sometimes shaky, but I'm pleased with the character of my team.
" I can't say it was a very good performance but I was very pleased with the young guys. There were a lot of positive things today."
Saint-Andre added that fly-half Daniel Larrechea may have sustained an ankle fracture.
"He's very tough to play on but it looked a bad injury to the bone. He could be out for six or seven weeks."
Harlequins: Brown; Strettle, Luscombe, Abbott, Monye; Jarvis, Gomarsall; Jones, Richards, Ross, Kohn, Evans, Easter, Skinner, Hala'ufia.
Replacements: Croall, Ward, Spanghero, Vos, Care, McMullen, Williams.
Sale: Cueto; Ripol, Bell, Seveali'i, Hanley; Larrechea, Foden; Roberts, Briggs, Stewart, Cox, Day, White, Tait, Chabal.
Replacements: Goana, Turner, Hills, J. Fernandez Lobbe, Martens, Thomas, Taylor.
Referee: Sean Davey (RFU)
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