Cardiff continue to gain momentum en route to the Heineken Cup match with Gloucester in a fortnights time by beating Sale 18-17 at Edgeley Park. Despite a woefully poor performance, the Blues beat a Sale side that set a new Guinness Premiership record in September by not conceding a single try.

Admittedly, this was a shadow of the side that has performed so well in the league of late, but a win's a win for the Arms Park region, who are now strong contenders to progress from the group, with home fixtures against Bath and Leicester still to come.

Former Blue, Nick Macleod opened the afternoons scoring by slotting an early penalty on his first start at the Manchester based club. But celebrations were short lived for the home fans, who saw Leigh Halfpenny benefit from a cracking Ritchie Rees break to touch down in the right corner. Blair, who was uncharacteristically poor with the boot, did manage to slot the conversion.

Fortunately, Macleod was also having a very average day from the kicking tee, the Cardiff born utility back missing six points in quick succession to keep the Blues in the narrowest of leads.

But it wasn't to last, as Keil scored for the Sharks following turn over ball in the Sale half. Macleod missed the conversion, but he and Blair exchanged penalties before the end of the half, as Sale took an 11-10 lead into the break despite Marc Jones being sin binned.

Half Time

Sale Sharks 11 Cardiff Blues 10

After the interval, Macleod slotted two more penalties as Sale began to dominate the lacklustre Blues. But as time began to tick away, and substitutions began to take place, Cardiff began to turn on the style a little more.

Firstly, a change of kick taker saw Ceri Sweeney get the Blues back to 17-13, before changes brought on Nick Robinson, Tom Shanklin and Richard Mustoe.

The Blues squandered a certain try scoring opportunity near the death, as Nick Robinson failed to see the space Mustoe had outside him and opted to kick following a lovely break from Jamie Roberts.

But he made amends in the final few minutes of the match, putting in the long pass to Jamie Roberts who utilised Mustoe making the inside run, the new Blues winger crashing over despite some big tackles to steal the points from Sale.

Final Score

Sale 17 Cardiff Blues18

In truth, Cardiff were dreadful. Dai Young was less than impressed by fact that, essentially, the Blues best XV available, struggled so much against a Sale side that had made XV changes from their midweek match against London Irish.

"We were very poor, there's no excuses for that. Sale played extremely well and stopped us playing, were really competitive at the tackle area, really good defensively and didn't give us any tempo. The only real positive is that we came away with a win, we struggled to go beyond three or four phases."

But having said that, Young did go on to say that there will be changes to that side come the Calvasano match next week, namely Xavier Rush, Tom James, Tom Shanklin and Maama Molitika, none of whom started yesterdays game.

But even so, there will need to be a massive improvement ahead of the Calvasano game, and with Gloucester just a week later at the Millennium Stadium, the players must lift their game.

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