Exeter had already secured home advantage in the play-offs but there was no letting up from the champions who ensured they will finish at the top of the table for the first time with a bonus point victory over opponents on the trail of the Champions Cup who refused to go away.
There is a relentlessness about the Chiefs, who have Ireland’s ability to recycle possession countless times until they force a mistake while maintaining their discipline and concentration, but they do not just rely on formula. Their first and third tries came directly from set pieces and lured Sale into defending the expected and catching them exposed.
The first, after Byron McGuigan had chased AJ MacGinty’s cross-kick to score in the right-hand corner and give Sale an early lead, came after five minutes of scrums, resets and penalties when Sam Hill had been held up over the line by MacGinty after fending off Faf de Klerk.
Exeter were awarded three penalties after establishing a clear dominance up front where Alec Hepburn was acting as his opposite number WillGriff John’s osteopath. After the referee Karl Dickson, on a testing afternoon for the former Harlequins scrum-half, had reminded the Sharks that he possessed a yellow card, Exeter set up for the shove but the scrum-half Nic White picked up and drifted infield.
With the Sale back row slow to get up, White fixed the defence and stepped inside into space for a try that showed the value of deception. So did their third try six minutes after the restart when they kicked a penalty to touch five metres from the opposition line. That is a cue for Exeter to catch and drive and again Sale set themselves for what they had prepared for.
Instead Exeter threw to Sam Simmonds at the front. The flanker Dan Armand received the ball as he ran towards the blindside but, instead of tucking it under his arm, he passed it to the unmarked Jack Yeandle on the right wing. With Sale committed to defending the drive, all the hooker had to do to score was catch the ball and restore the 10-point lead his side had established in the opening half.
Exeter had followed up White’s try with the score of the match three minutes later. They won a turnover on Sale’s 10-metre line and quickly set about attacking a disorganised defence, moving the ball quickly left. The full-back, Lachlan Turner, came into the line at pace and at an angle, taking advantage of the flanker Ben Curry’s decision to stay wide to safeguard against an overlap.
Turner ran through the space Curry had left and, when he reached the 22, he was travelling at such speed that when he sidestepped the last line of defence, Will Addison, there was no defender near him. Exeter were swaggering while Sale were staggering but the Sharks have shown all season that, when they wobble, they rarely fall down.
Back they came again. McGuigan’s kick to the line forced Joe Simmonds to take the ball into touch. Sale won the lineout and two phases later Andrew Ostrikov reached out for the line. Sale may have lacked Exeter’s organisation and collective understanding but they matched them in terms of will power, propelled by their half-backs and regularly manoeuvring themselves into space.
Their response to Yeandle’s try, a point where visitors here tend to collapse, was to launch their most sustained attack of the match. De Klerk was denied a try on review, deemed to have knocked on after Dave Ewers’ challenge in a decision that could have gone either way, but 13 minutes from the end they put themselves in bonus-point territory when De Klerk’s pass gave McGuigan, a former Exeter player, just enough room to smartly score in the corner.
Sale finish their season at home to Leicester on Saturday. They will start the day in seventh position, four points behind the Tigers. To finish above them they will need to win by more than seven points having scored at least four tries, but Gloucester’s collapse against Bath has made it more likely that seven English clubs will be competing in the Champions Cup next season.
It was Exeter who ended up with the bonus point, their 16th of the season, when after Gareth Steenson kicked a penalty, Greg Holmes rumbled over for their fourth try. “We should have got something out of the game and now have to beat Leicester,” said Sale’s director of rugby, Steve Diamond. “We’re good at home.”
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