Premiership: Sale 36-12 Worcester Warriors - Sharks score six tries to hammer Steve Diamond's new side

Worcester have not won away from home in the Premiership since September 2020

Sale Sharks blew Worcester Warriors away with a stunning second-half show as they ruined former boss Steve Diamond's return to the north west.

After Sam James' early try, the lead swapped hands three times as Tom Howe and Niall Annett crossed for Worcester either side of Arron Reed for Sale.

But it was a different story after the break, with the wind at Sale's backs.

Manu Tuilagi, Curtis Langdon, Janse van Rensburg and Reed all scored as Diamond's young Warriors crumpled.

AJ MacGinty, who had missed both his first-half conversions, kicked three out of the four after the turnaround to help Sale register their biggest league win of the season.

• Diamond on rebound at Worcester from his 'nice' Sale divorce

Warriors, who had beaten Sale 27-14 at Sixways back in November, have still not won at the AJ Bell Stadium in 10 attempts.

But winger Duhan van der Merwe was Worcester's two-try hero earlier in the season - and he was one of three much-missed absentees, along with fellow Scotland and British and Irish Lions team-mate Rory Sutherland and injured England centre Ollie Lawrence.

Diamond's side have now lost all three games since he took charge but all three were against tough opponents, a home defeat by Northampton, then last week's inevitable loss to leaders Leicester - and the new Warriors boss has made it clear that he already has one eye firmly on next season, and how to propel the club forward in the long term.

By contrast, Sale had not only England centre Tuilagi back on show but South Africa's fit-again World Cup winning scrum-half Faf de Klerk making his first start of the season - and even when he went off on 52 minutes he was replaced by exciting young England scrum-half contender Raffi Quirke.

It was Tuliagi who triggered Sale's second-half surge when he touched down to give his side back the lead for the first of three tries in 12 minutes.

And the hosts never looked back as they followed up their wins over league leaders Leicester and defending champions Harlequins for a third straight victory to move them within just four points of fourth spot.

After Perry Humphreys had been sin-binned for a cynical tackle on Reed, Quirke offloaded for Langdon to go over.

Quirke was also involved in the tries for Reed and Van Rensburg which finished Worcester off - and Sale boss Alex Sanderson believes he should be ahead of Ben Youngs and Harry Randall in the queue for the the first-choice England number nine jersey.

Sale director of rugby Alex Sanderson:

"Manu was outstanding again. Fortunately - because it's good for the country - he will go to England and will hopefully do as good a job there as he has here for the last two weeks.

"He will phone Eddie Jones and they will make up their own plan. I'm really excited for him. He's going to do well because he's trained hard, he's prepped well and his head is in a good place.

"I'm biased, but Raffi Quirke would be my starting nine whatever side I was picking or coaching. So long as he keeps doing that, and he's up against the other best scrum-half in the world (Faf de Klerk), it's going to make it very difficult for Eddie not to pick him.

"That's all he can do. That's all he can control. At the moment it's Eddie's opinion and he has to respect that, but the way you change someone's opinion is through continuing to play like that."

Worcester boss Steve Diamond:

"The bench that came on made a difference for Sale. Quirke came on and Rohan Janse van Rensburg came on and they made a big difference.

"When you bring somebody like Quirke off the bench, he made Faf look slow and made a huge impact. You can't legislate for the off-loads that he's able to do.

"It's one of those days when you can't say too much to the players as they gave it their all. It just wasn't good enough.

"We need to get our basics right, as I've said to them every day since I've been in the building."

Sale: S James; Roebuck, R du Preez, Tuilagi, Reed; MacGinty, De Klerk; Harrison, Langdon, Oosthuizen, Wiese, De Jager, Ross, Dugdale, J-L du Preez.

Replacements: Taylor, McIntyre, Jones, Barrow, Nield, Quirke, Van Rensburg, McGuigan.

Worcester: Shillcock; Humphreys, Hearle, Beck, Howe; Smith, Simpson; McCallum, Annett, Judge, Garvey, G Kitchener, Hill (capt), Lewis, Dodd.

Replacements: Miller, Owen, Tyack, Batley, Hatherell, Chudley, Searle, Atkinson.

Sin-bin: Humphreys (56)

Referee: Karl Dickson (RFU).

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