Barbeary powers over as Bath fight back to beat Sale

Bath’s heavyweight bench came to the rescue as they narrowed the gap on Prem leaders Northampton Saints to just a point with a comeback win over Sale Sharks at the CorpAcq Stadium.

The champions’ rotated team trailed 19-7 at the interval but the cavalry changed the course of the contest and with England A hooker Kepueli Tuipulotu hugely influential they turned up the power to score four second-half tries.

The match-winning score came from another of the bench men – No 8 Alfie Barbeary – with nine minutes left.

Sale engineered a great position to steal the win late on but George Ford, playing his first game since February 21 after being dropped by England following the Six Nations defeat to Ireland, lost control of the ball and the chance slipped away.

It was Sharks’ ninth defeat of a disappointing league campaign.

More to follow…

Match details 

Scoring sequence: 0-5 Frost try, 0-7 Carreras con, 5-7 O’Flaherty try, 7-7 Ford con, 12-7 du Preez try, 14-7 Ford con, 19-7 Cowan-Dickie try, 19-12 Hennessey try, 19-14 Carreras con, 19-19 Staddon try, 24-19 Roebuck try, 26-19 Ford con, 26-24, Tuipulotu try, 26-26 Carreras con, 26-31 Barbeary try.

Sale Sharks: J Carpenter; T Roebuck, R du Preez (M Louw 48), R Ma’asi-White, T O’Flaherty; G Ford, R Quirke (G Warr 60); B Rodd (R McEachran 60), L Cowan-Dickie (E Caine 60), J Harper (T Raymont 60), E van Rhyn, B Bamber, S Dugdale (D du Preez 57), N Jibulu (J Gilmore 72), J Vermeulen.

Bath: T de Glanville; J Cokanasiga, L Hennessey, C Redpath, W Muir; S Carreras, T Carr-Smith (B van der Linde 60); S Kirk (B Obano 35), D Frost (K Tuipulotu 41), V Sela (T du Toit 35), W Jeanes (E Richards 53), R Molony (C Ewels 54-72), T Hill, E Staddon, M Reid (A Barbeary 60).

Referee: L Pearce.