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E. Mawi (33'), S. Va'enuku (45'), C. Bracken (72')
Tries
N. Jibulu (6'), T. O'Flaherty (41'), B. Bamber (64')
F. Burke (72')
Conversions
G. Ford (6', 42'), A. Lozowski (65')
What this actually showed is that Sale Sharks have put last season’s humiliation to bed with something far more stubborn and grown-up. A year after shipping 65 and then 85 to Saracens, they came south and won a grind. Not slick, not pretty, but hard and organised — the kind of away day they simply didn’t produce in 2025–26.
It also told us plenty about Saracens. They had more ball, more carries, more front-foot moments — and didn’t turn them into points. Against 14 men for more than an hour, including a 15-on-13 window, they came away with five first-half points and the nagging sense they’d let the game go where Sale wanted it.
The match turned not on a flourish but on a failure. Sale lost Alex Lozowski to the bin on 11 minutes and then saw Jacques Vermeulen sent off six minutes later. In that stretch, Sarries should have banked control. They didn’t. Sale’s shape held, their kicking was tidy enough, and when Saracens overplayed, bodies piled over the ball. By the time Eroni Mawi finally got over, the minutes with a two-man advantage were almost gone and Sale were still in the arm-wrestle.
From there, it became a different kind of Sale performance to the one we’ve learned to expect at StoneX: unapologetically about the tackle count and the set piece. Tom Curry (19 tackles) and Joe Marchant (18) did the donkey work in midfield, Ernst van Rhyn was busy in traffic, and the lineout with Ben Bamber (six takes) was clean enough to give George Ford a steering wheel. Ford’s two try assists and two conversions were exactly the kind of quiet authority needed away from home with 14 men.
CARRIES
CLEAN BREAK
DEFENDER BEATEN
TACKLE
MISSED TACKLE
TURNOVER WON
TURNOVERS CONCEDED
PENALTY CONCEDED
YELLOW CARD
RED CARD
POSSESSION
SCRUMS
LINEOUTS
Look at the numbers and you’d expect a home win: Saracens owned the ball, beat more defenders and made twice the clean breaks. But inside the 22 they were blunt. Two missed conversions left four points on the park, and too many multi-phase sets died with handling errors or a jackal. Tomos Williams sparked plenty and finished with two try assists, and replacement Charlie Bracken added late tempo and a try, but Saracens’ decision-making around the red zone never quite matched the pressure they built.
Sale, by contrast, were ruthless in the two moments that mattered: straight after half-time when Tom O’Flaherty finished a strike that put daylight between the sides, and on 64 minutes when Bamber crashed in from close range to make it 21–10. Those were the only passages where they had clean, front-foot ball with field position — and they cashed both. Early on, Nathan Jibulu had already landed the opening blow and beat five defenders in a lively shift; later, the backfield work of Joe Carpenter (eight carries, five beaten) helped Ford play territory and keep Saracens chasing touchlines.
There were Saracens positives. Mawi and Williams carried threat, Nick Isiekwe and Maro Itoje were active in the air, and once Ben Earl got extended minutes he carried with purpose. But the early back-row reshuffle did them no favours, and their attack leaned on individuals rather than a system that could stress 14 defenders. The stat sheet flatters them slightly: 139 carries and 27 defenders beaten for 17 points against a side down a man should sting on Monday.
Sale won this because their set piece held at 14 men, their defence refused to blink, and their playmakers picked their moments. It wasn’t flawless — 15 penalties and 29 missed tackles is untidy and the Vermeulen red can’t become a theme — but this was a proper course correction in this rivalry. The added edge that Lozowski, back at StoneX in different colours, brought to the midfield contest was obvious even with the yellow; his late conversion felt like closure of a different kind.
For Saracens, the work-ons are clear before Bristol: be far more clinical in the red zone, tidy the breakdown accuracy when teams slow the ball, and settle the back-row balance so they’re not changing on the fly. For Sale, the takeaway is simpler: they can now win ugly in North London. After last season, that matters more than any flourish. Clean up the discipline and this becomes a template, not an outlier.
