Bristol director of rugby Pat Lam conceded that his side were second best and foolishly gave George Ford opportunities to chip away at the scoreboard.
He said: “Whenever we play Sale it comes down to the physical battle and 100 per cent they won that.
“We spoke about it at half-time, we just had to drop our height. Every contact was hard. You’d prefer to play them in a dry game but when it comes to this (weather) it was always going to be difficult.
“We tried to stay in the hunt but made it difficult for ourselves; we’d given 12 points away and they hadn’t even gotten into our 22 yet. That’s...