Premiership: Sale Sharks 36-7 London Irish

Denny Solomona opened his try scoring account for the new season

Denny Solomona scored two tries as Sale brushed aside London Irish at the AJ Bell Stadium.

Ross Harrison's first try for the club in 156 games helped establish a 24-0 half-time lead for Sale, who had lost their first two games.

Josh Charnley secured Sale's bonus point on 56 minutes before the Exiles got on board with a penalty try.

Irish's Blair Cowan was shown a red card for an altercation before Mark Jennings scored for Sale late on.

The Sharks had not started a domestic season with three straight defeats since the 2012-13 season and a dominant display meant they never looked like matching that unwanted record.

After being sent home from England's training camp in August for breaching their code of conduct, Solomona reminded England head coach Eddie Jones of his finer qualities.

For the second week in a row Irish struggled with their defence, once again failing to reach the heights of their opening victory over Harlequins at Twickenham.

They were awarded a penalty try when their pack took hold of a driving maul and Halani Aulika was penalised, but Jennings' try capped Sale's victory.

Sale Sharks director of rugby Steve Diamond: "There's no point comparing it to last week because we didn't get anything basic right. What we did in the week was reassure them that there's no panic.

"We had lost against a better side in Wasps and we should have really won last week, but we just wanted to set the standards.

"With players like Faf de Klerk and Jono Ross coming in, it has just lifted the tempo of our team. Last week, nobody in the side matched them but today they did.

"Everybody turned up, the set-piece delivered and our defence was outstanding again. If sides beat us playing like that then they're going to have to be a good team."

London Irish director of rugby Nick Kennedy: "A few things went wrong for us. Our defence wasn't good enough in the first half, we slipped off a lot of tackles and missed a lot of tackles.

"Sale did well. They've got good attacking structures, held the ball for long periods and really stretched us so we didn't actually get into their half to attack for half an hour.

"It was a slow start from us but also a very good start from Sale and they deserved their win.

"Sale were disappointed from last week and they obviously came out firing. We were slow to start for the second week running, so it's something we will have to address."

Sale Sharks: Addison (capt); Solomona, James, Jennings, Charnley; MacGinty, De Klerk; Harrison, Jones, Tarus, Evans, Beaumont, Ross, B Curry, Strauss.

Replacements: Webber, Flynn, Aulika, Ostrikov, T Curry, Ioane, Cliff, Haley.

London Irish: Bell; Lewington, Tikoirotuma, McLean, Ojo; Marshall, McKibbin; Hobbs-Awoyemi, Porecki, Franks (capt); van der Merwe, De Chaves; Coman, Cowan, Treviranus.

Replacements: Paice, Elrington, Du Plessis, McNally, Gilsenan, Tonks, Tonks, Nalaga.

Referee: Wayne Barnes