Kingsley Jones admits Sale have given themselves a real chance of reaching the Heineken Cup quarter-finals after beating Quins.
Sharks boss revelling in underdog tag
Sale director of rugby Kingsley Jones admits his side have given themselves a "real chance" of reaching the Heineken Cup quarter-finals after victory over Harlequins at The Stoop.
The Sharks overcame their Guinness Premiership counterparts 29-19 in London and have now registered nine points at the halfway point of their Pool Five qualification campaign.
Tries from Dwayne Peel, Nick MacLeod, David Seymour and Ben Cohen saw Sale clinch a five-point haul and all-but end Quins' hopes of reaching the next stage.
Speaking after the match, Sale chief Jones hopes the victory will go some way to silencing the critics who claim the north west club have been "struggling" in his first full year in charge.
Underdogs
"It could have been 40-30 to us, but our discipline second half wasn't good enough," he said.
"We knew we could score tries against this team, as we showed in the first half. Turnovers provided the chance to counter, and while our set-piece was under pressure, we achieved a terrific win in a wide-open pool.
"We're seen as underdogs, and I don't mind that one bit. Struggling Sale, I keep hearing. Fine, but we also have a real chance of reaching the quarter-final.
"We had nearly 30 minutes of defending manfully during the last third of this game, and I am very proud of the players."
Harlequins head coach John Kingston vowed to dent Sale's charge towards the last eight of the competition in the return fixture at Edgley Park next weekend.
Kingston said: "It was win or bust today. We gave away so many soft tries in the first half that we had to really go for it in the second.
"We were asleep first half? I don't know, but I do know we conceded a lot of soft points. We spoke at the break not about mistakes but about reminding the boys that what we'd seen is not us and that we'd switched off at times.
Gremlins
"They had four chances and they scored four tries. It's been a massively disappointing Heineken Cup campaign, but we should warn Sale that we won't travel all the way up there next weekend without being competitive.
"We don't want them to win again and feel they've got a hold over us when we meet in the league on New Year's Day.
"When we got to the tournament we were reminded of the sad gremlins of the summer, but two of the better games in the Heineken Cup have been here, against Toulouse and now Sale."
Kingston also refuted suggestions in some quarters that the current rules favour defensive rugby.
"The rugby we saw today proves again, as we did against Gloucester, that saying people cannot play rugby under the existing rules is hogwash."
On the disciplinary situation surrounding Quins' England scrum-half Danny Care, he added: "We suspended Danny Care for a game after being alerted that a tackle he made at Leeds might be perceived as citeable.
"We decided that his tackle merited a yellow card, not red. Now we has been cited so we have to wait and see."
