Premiership: Leicester 16-26 Sale - Sharks go top with victory at champions

Sale Sharks handed Leicester Tigers their first Premiership defeat at home this season

Sale Sharks beat champions Leicester Tigers to move top of the Premiership.

A Jasper Wiese try and three Freddie Burns penalties put Tigers 16-12 up at the break, while Tom Roebuck and Robert du Preez went over for Sale.

Raffi Quirke created a try for Tom Curry then went over himself as Sharks piled misery on a Tigers side thumped 51-18 by Saracens last week.

Sale kept Leicester scoreless after the break as they made it four league wins from four to start the season.

Handing Tigers their first Premiership defeat at Mattioli Woods Welford Road this season - and first for 490 days - leaves Leicester sixth in the table and sends the Sharks four points clear at the summit.

Saracens, however, can return to the top with victory against Newcastle on Sunday.

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After an early Burns penalty, a fine individual finish from Roebuck - which saw him wriggle out of attempted tackles from Burns and Harry Potter - edged the the visitors ahead.

Fly-half Du Preez's failure to convert the try allowed Burns to restore Tigers' lead with another penalty minutes later, the fly-half further extending the hosts' advantage with another successful kick midway through the first half.

South Africa back-rower Wiese, back from international duty along with Argentina hooker Julian Montoya, made a typically big impression in his first Tigers outing of the season.

After a thumping tackle from Manu Tuilagi stopped Potter from scoring for Tigers, Wiese collected the ball to cross in the corner for Leicester's only try of the day.

But Sale hit back in style, with a between-the-legs pass from scrum-half Gus Warr which bamboozled Tigers' defence, setting Du Preez up for Sharks' second score.

Fit-again scrum-half Quirke, who came off the bench for his first appearance since April following a hamstring injury, slipped through a gap to set up Curry for the first five-pointer of the second half before then going over himself to help make it 26-16 with 21 minutes left.

Tigers' rarely threatened to mount a comeback in another underwhelming performance from the 11-time champions, but it remained tense as Du Preez missed a late penalty that would have made the bonus-point victory more comfortable for Sale.

Reaction - 'Thirsty' Quirke eyes England recall

Sale director of rugby Alex Sanderson:

"He [Raffi Quirke] was on fire, wasn't he? He scored tries, he stopped tries, he set up tries - he was a one-man try machine on both sides of the ball.

"I'm chuffed for him. It's been frustrating for him, the last 12 months, he hasn't played much for us.

"He's got big ambitions, hasn't he? He's got another couple of games to show what he can do and hopefully get himself into that autumn internationals squad, but if Eddie (Jones) is watching that, it's going to be difficult to keep him out.

"The only way you get to play for your country is to play well consistently for your club, so we'll try to bring it back and simplify it again.

"Because he got a taste of it this time last year, he's got more than a taste now, he's got a thirst and he's super-keen to showcase what he can do."

Leicester Tigers head coach Steve Borthwick:

"I think we had two teams who were pretty well matched for a large part. Probably in the first half we were disappointed we didn't score more points when we were down there.

"We were disappointed with how easily they scored - to go 16-5 up and then concede immediately was pretty disappointing.

"The period of play that was really the difference in the game was after half-time, where immediately they had a couple of chances and took them well.

"We had two or three people making their first starts of the season today. We always knew that was going to be the case, with the amount of internationals we had away in the summer, and we've just got to work through it and keep improving."

Leicester Tigers: Steward; Potter, Scott, Gopperth, Nadolo; Burns, Wigglesworth; Cronin, Montoya, Cole; Wells, Green; Martin, Liebenberg, Wiese.

Replacements: Clare, Leatigaga, Heyes, Snyman, Cracknell, Van Poortvliet, Cokanasiga, Watson.

Sale Sharks: Carpenter; Roebuck, James, Tuilagi, O'Flaherty; R du Preez, Warr; Rodd, Van der Merwe, Schonert; Wiese, J Hill; Ross, T Curry, JL du Preez.

Replacements: Ashman, McIntyre, Oosthuizen, Beaumont, Dugdale, Quirke, S Hill, Reed.

Referee: Luke Pearce.