Match Centre: Gallagher Premiership: Gloucester 22-25 Sale Sharks

Gloucester 22-25 Sale Sharks, Kingsholm

Sale Sharks managed to hold off a late try from Jonny May as they edged out Gloucester 25-22 to seal a home play-off spot in the ongoing Gallagher Premiership at Kingsholm on Saturday.

The win meant Sale now have 64 points from 19 matches that has taken beyond the reach of third placed Leicester Tigers while Gloucester are at 10th position.

Sale suffered an early setback as Nick Schonert left the field in the second minute and their defence held firm as they averted a number of Gloucester charges. A combination of Adam Hastings and Santi Carreras set up Louis Rees-Zammit but the Welsh star was stopped from scoring after a tackle from Aaron Reed.

George Ford kicked a penalty goal to start the proceedings for the Sharks before Hastings kicked a three pointer of his own around the half-hour mark to level the scores.

The first try of the game came in the 34th minute as Jean-Luc du Preez powered from close range and Ford kicked the conversion to make it 3-10 before Tom Curry was sin-binned for a cynical foul.

Sale's problems compounded as Manu Tuilagi was also sent to sin-bin for an offside infringement and Gloucester capitalised on the numerical advantage with Lewis Ludlow dotting down after collecting an offload from May. Hastings kicked the conversion to level the scores 10-10.

The score continued to remain level as Rees-Zammit and Jono Ross traded tries making it 17-17 at the end of the third quarter. Ford missed a drop goal in the 62nd minute but made amends with a three-pointer a minute later to make it 17-20. With seven minutes left in the game, Sam James went over the line which proved just enough despite a late try from May.

Team line up:

Gloucester: Carreras, Rees-Zammit, Harris, Atkinson, May, Hastings, Varney; Vivas, McGuigan, Gotovtsev, Clarke, Alemanno, Clement, Ludlow, Morgan.

Reserves: Blake, Elrington, Ford-Robinson, Jordan, Thomas, Chapman, Twelvetrees, Hearle.

Sale: Carpenter, Roebuck, R du Preez, Tuilagi, Reed, Ford, Warr; McIntryre, van der Merwe, Schonert, JL du Preez, Hill, T Curry, B Curry, Ross.

Reserves: Ashman, Rodd, Oosthuizen, Beaumont, Dugdale, Quirke, James, McGuigan.