Sale beat European Cup semi-finalists Cardiff Blues 27-26 in a tense Pool Five match on Friday, but the win was overshadowed by an injury suffered by England and Lions prop Andrew Sheridan.
Injury-plagued Sheridan dislocated his left shoulder in the closing stages and is set to miss England’s daunting Autumn international program, which starts with a Twickenham clash against Australia on Nov. 7.
“Andrew’s in pain, but he’s sat upright and I’ve just had a little conversation with him,” Sale coach Kingsley Jones told the BBC. “The result makes me happy, but the injury to Andrew is very sad for us.”
Fellow forward James Gaskell, just 19, played a starring role for Sale who had been beaten 36-17 by triple European champions Toulouse in their tournament opener last week.
Gaskell created a try for skipper Dean Schofield in the 37th minute and then added his own try in the second half. Fijian flanker Sisa Koyamaibole had claimed Sale’s first try.
Cardiff, who had defeated Harlequins in their first match, saw Andy Powell score a try with Robin Sowden-Taylor pouncing on a loose ball to claim their second in the 79th minute.
Ben Blair converted to cut the gap to one point, but Sale held on to keep alive their hopes of progressing to the knockout stages.
There was better luck for Cardiff’s fellow Welshmen, with Newport Gwent Dragons, beaten by Gloucester last time out, clinching a 22-14 win over Glasgow.
French champions Perpignan, who were humiliated 9-8 by Treviso in their opening Pool One clash, hit back in style with a 29-13 home win over Northampton, who last week had seen off Munster 31-27.
Both sides scored a brace of tries, with Perpignan awarded a penalty try before David Marty crossed, while Chris Ashton and Brian Mujati scored for the Englishmen.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier