Premiership: Sale 54-12 Newcastle Falcons - eight-try Sharks head into semi-finals in style

Tom Roebuck scores Sale's first try against Newcastle Falcons at the AJ Bell Stadium

Sale Sharks warmed up for next Sunday's Premiership semi-final with Leicester Tigers by scoring eight tries to beat Newcastle in their final league match.

Sale's power won the game as they scored first-half tries through Tom Roebuck, Sam James and Ben Curry.

Bevan Rodd and Raffie Quirke crossed after the break before a penalty try, Aaron Reed's score, and James' second.

Newcastle bookended the game with tries first from Pedro Rubiolo and then hooker Jamie Blamire with time up.

It was a 14th defeat of the season for Newcastle, who were already guaranteed to finish bottom of the table.

They could not match Sale's power as the home side responded to going behind with Roebuck claiming George Ford's up-and-under to walk under the posts.

Joe Carpenter then took a short pass to burst through a tackle and passed for James to score five minutes after coming on as a replacement.

The home side scored a third before half-time as they kicked a scrum penalty to the corner, and after the initial maul was halted Curry went over on his 150th appearance for the club.

Sale's forwards were even more dominant after the break and made ground down the right before Rodd was worked over for the bonus-point score.

A loose Newcastle pass presented scrum-half Quirke with a walk-in from 40 yards out before a series of close-range scrums eventually drew a penalty try and a yellow card for Falcons prop Phil Brantingham.

A Curry rampage down the right led to Reed being sent into the right corner before James completed the rout five minutes from time.

Newcastle had the final say as hooker Blamire barged his way over the line with the clock in the red, but there was no masking another chastening afternoon for the Falcons.

Sale director of rugby Alex Sanderson:

"It has been a successful season, of course it has.

"We've been performing well and we've got a home semi-final, which we haven't done for 17 years, so we're happy about that.

"But we're not content in saying, 'That's us done'. We're not done. We'll be content when we bring home a cup.

"How other people judge it through the annals of time will become, 'Were you or were you not champion material?' and we'll find that out now.

"There's no place I'd rather be, no group I'd rather be with."

Newcastle interim head coach Mark Laycock:

"We'll regroup - there are a lot of things for us to learn and take forward.

"The group that we've got next year is very new so it will be a big challenge for us to look at what we've got in terms of our strengths, and try and work out what combinations work best for us and how we need to play to maximise that.

"We came down here with confidence that we could go and put something on Sale and unfortunately we didn't really deliver the gameplan. We didn't have enough physicality and intensity to match them.

"I thought they did exceptionally well in strangling us out of the game and best wishes to them in their semi-final."

Sale: Carpenter, Roebuck, R du Preez, Tuilagi, Reed, Ford, Quirke; Rodd, Ashman, Oosthuizen, J-L du Preez, Hill, Dugdale, B Curry, Ross.

Replacements: Caine, McIntyre, Harper, Beaumont, D du Preez, Ellis, Cliff, S James.

Newcastle: Obatoyinbo, Radwan, Moroni, Orlando, Carreras, Connon, Stuart; Brocklebank, Blamire, Tampin, Peterson, De Chaves, Rubiolo, Van der Walt, Chick.

Replacements: Cade, Brantingham, Palframan, Lockwood, Fearns, Barton, Schoeman, Thomas.

Sin-bin: Brantingham (71).

Referee: Sara Cox.

• Subscribe to the Rugby Union Weekly podcast

• Add rugby union alerts to your BBC Sport app

• Can you answer these game show questions? Test yourself in this fun quiz

• Who killed Michaela McAreavey on her honeymoon? The tragic murder of an Irish sporting icon's daughter reinvestigated