Premiership: London Irish 31-31 Sale Sharks - Visitors stage second-half comeback to draw

Tom Parton scores the first of two tries as London Irish came back against Sale

London Irish came back from 17 points down to draw a thriller with Sale.

Tries from AJ MacGinty, Marland Yarde, Sam James and Will Cliff gave visitors Sale a four-try bonus point and a 31-14 lead at half-time.

Ben White and Agustin Creevy had scored in the first half before a Tom Parton double brought Irish within seven.

Curtis Rona's try levelled it with four minutes to go, but the hosts missed the chance to win it when Paddy Jackson hit the post with a last-minute penalty.

MacGinty, making his first start this season at fly-half for Sale following international duty for the USA, proved hugely influential in the first half at the Brentford Community Stadium.

He took only two minutes to open the scoring for the visitors, after being set up by Manu Tuilagi, before Yarde doubled Sale's lead to 14-0 inside the first quarter of an hour.

The home side hit back through White, scoring his first try since his transfer to the Exiles this summer, with a quick tap-and-go under the posts. But Sale were on top as MacGinty produced the kick of the match, using his left foot to squeeze the ball narrowly between two defenders for James to score and extend their lead again.

Creevy pulled another back but again London Irish proved inconsistent and when Adam Coleman was yellow-carded for a dangerous challenge on MacGinty - who then went off injured - it didn't take long for Cliff to break free from the ruck. The scrum-half had been called up to start as a late injury replacement for Raffi Quirke.

Sale came into the match after narrowly beating Bath in round one of the Premiership, where a 17-3 half-time lead was whittled away before they won by a point. Again, they fell away in the second half.

After the restart, referee Wayne Barnes ruled out a fifth try by Curtis Langdon, for being held up over the line, and the pendulum began to swing away from them.

Parton superbly stayed in touch to palm his first over the line, and after Sharks captain Jono Ross was sent to the bin for a tackle off the ball, he added a second to make it 31-24.

Rona sprinted over in the left corner to bring London Irish level with minutes remaining, before the post prevented Jackson from securing victory with the last kick of the match.

The draw means London Irish continue a winless run in the Premiership that stretches back to 27 March.

London Irish head coach Les Kiss told BBC Radio London:

"That was probably the disappointing part that we didn't do ourselves justice for a lot of that first half. However, I have to take my hat off to Sale, we gave them a bit of a chance to get their style into play, and they did it exceptionally well.

"We just were on the back foot, we couldn't quite contain it, When we had an opportunity to bounce back in some form, we got a turnover or something like that up their end, we were frivolous and frantic with it.

"The pleasing thing in the first half was that we got 14 points, I think it was from three visits down to their 22, so that was important. Second half, we just needed to make sure we stuck to our plan and got back on track in that way and I think that's important. And we did that, and that's why it looks like, and it certainly was, a game of two halves."

Sale director of rugby Alex Sanderson:

"We didn't get set-piece dominance and lost too much ball at the breakdown. We've got to be smarter when things aren't going our way and we were struggling to get the gain-line advantage we had in the first half.

"You've got to find a way to grab the game and we didn't change tactics. We weren't smart in what we did. We were banging our heads against a brick wall.

"We started the second half strongly but it was all Irish for the last 30 minutes. I asked the players afterwards and they said they felt like they'd lost."

London Irish: Parton; Rowe, Rona, Hepetema, Hassell-Collins; Jackson, White; Goodrick-Clarke, Creevy, Van der Merwe, Simmons, Coleman, Rogerson (capt), Donnell, Tuisue.

Replacements: Willemse, Dell, Hoskins, Nott, Mafi, O'Brien, O'Sullivan, Van Rensburg.

Sin bin: Coleman (35)

Sale Sharks: Hammersley; McGuigan, S James, Tuilagi, Yarde, MacGinty, Cliff; Rodd, Taylor, Schonert, Wiese, JP Du Preez, Dugdal, B Curry, Ross (capt).

Replacements: Langdon, Harrison, Oosthuizen, Birch, Ashman, Warr, Wilkinson, Solomona.

Sin bin: Ross (66)

Referee: Wayne Barnes.

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