Tony Hanks was "embarrassed" by Sale's 58-27 LV=Cup defeat against defending champions Gloucester.
Sale collapse in closing stages of Kingsholm loss
Sale head coach Tony Hanks said his side felt "embarrassed" after subsiding to a 58-27 LV=Cup defeat against defending champions Gloucester at Kingsholm.
The Sharks were level at 27-all as the game entered its final 25 minutes, having registered scores through Richie Vernon, Andrew Higgins and Rob Miller, with Nick MacLeod kicking 12 points.
But the toll of having James Gaskell, Alasdair Dickinson and Vernon sin-binned, as well as a scrum in full reverse, eventually told on the Sharks as they conceded 31 unanswered points to end up on the wrong end of a hammering.
And former Wasps boss Hanks said: "The last 15-20 minutes was extremely disappointing. When you look at the final score it's hard to to think that with 20 minutes to go we felt we could still win the game.
Open
"Both teams are going to play an open game but we are embarrassed by how many we conceded, but you can't come to Gloucester and play 30 minutes with 14 men, that's unacceptable.
"We were also poor at the scrum and when you don't get your scrum right you need to defend better than we did.
"Gloucester have some real depth in the scrum and that was probably the best scrum we have come up against, they looked to build on our game against them last week. But there are no excuses and we need to sort that out."
But Hanks also praised Gloucester for the manner in which they took advantage of his side's weaknesses, and the New Zealander says Sale still need some time to gel after undergoing a major summer overhaul of their playing staff under executive director of sport Steve Diamond.
"They still had to score 58 points, this is not just about us, they played well," he said.
"We are all very critical, we are all feeling annoyed, but I suppose there are going to be some bumps along the way.
"We are seven weeks old as a team and I am pleased we are disappointed as we have raised expectations quite quickly and we want that and we won't hide from that."
Control
Gloucester ended up running in seven tries through Lesley Vainikolo, Jonny May, captain Luke Narraway, Scott Lawson, Rory Lawson, Charlie Sharples and Freddie Burns, with fly-half Burns adding 21 points with the boot.
Coach Bryan Redpath was disappointed with elements of his side's first-half performance, but felt their control of the ball was vital in the second stanza.
He said: "I thought in the first half we fell off one-on-ones defensively.
"We allowed it to be a very loose and open game and credit to Sale they took advantage when we did miss a simple tackle.
"But in the second half we had more control, we controlled field position and possession pretty well.
"There were a lot of positives from it, we got the balance right between forward and backs. Played rugby in the right areas and up front we controlled the scrum area."
