George Ford’s boots earn Leicester Tigers a win over sorry Sale Sharks

George Ford kicked 15 points from the tee to help Leicester claim a convincing 20-8 win over Sale in Salford.
It is the sixth consecutive defeat of the season for the Sharks who remain deeply rooted at the foot of the table with a single point to their name
There were big signs of improvement but they couldn’t break the Tigers superb defensive line and when they did, they lacked composure to keep the pressure on and capitalise on their advantage.
A problem the Tigers clearly didn’t have. They scored six points in the first half despite spending less than a minute in the opposition 22 and when they put their foot down at the beginning of the second half they took the game away with ease.
For their first start of the season, Ford and Ben Youngs put on a impressive display from half-back but the difference came from up front.
The Tigers front row where dominant at will in the scrum while the whole pack, led by Ed Slater, dominated the break down to either generate quick ball in attack or slow the Sharks’ attack.
The home side had a great start of the game to see last year’s top-try-scorer Rob Miller dive in the right corner to take a 5-0 lead after six minutes
Despite putting the Tigers under a lot of pressure, handling errors and poor decisions prevented them from breaking the line again and they had to settle on a Rob Miller penalty to take a 8-6 lead at half-time.
Ford put the Tigers in front for the first time with a penalty before Youngs scored following a well-worked blindside from a scrum with Richard Thorpe.
The young fly-half missed the conversions but Leicester were now leading 14-8 showing a clear swing of momentum.
The 19-year-old added another penalty before Joe Ward was sent to the bin for throwing punches at Tom Youngs.
Ford kicked the resulting penalty to seal the win and round up a solid individual performance.
Sale threw everything at the Tigers to get back into the game and secure a losing bonus-point but the Tigers defence held up tight.
For Sale
Try: Miller
Penalty: Macleod
Sin Bin: Ward
For Leicester
Try: Youngs
Penalties: Ford 5
Sin Bin: Goneva
Sale: Miller; Addison, Leota, Tuitupou, Cueto; Macleod, Willis; Lewis-Roberts, Taylor, Buckley; Gray, McKenzie; Vernon, Seymour (capt.), Powell.
Replacements: Ward, Harrison, Cobilas, Myall, Gaskell, Fowles, Uys, Jennings.
Leicester: Morris; Thompstone, Tuilagi, Allen, Goneva; Ford, Youngs; Mulipola, Youngs, Castrogiovanni, Slater, Kitchener; Crane (capt.), Thorpe, Waldrom.
Replacements: Chuter, Stankovich, Cole, Andrew, Deacon, Harrison, Flood, Smith.
Referee: Wayne Barnes
Attendance: 8,212
Star man: Ed Slater – Leicester Tigers