Sale's rookie coaching staff paid tribute to the club's young players after they beat Leeds to mainatin their perfect LV= Cup record.
Sharks coaching staff pleased with application of stand-ins
Sale's rookie coaching staff of Pete Anglesea and Byron Hayward paid tribute to the club's young players after they kept the Sharks on course for an LV= Cup semi-final spot.
With head coach Mike Brewer watching from the stands at Headingley Carnegie, A-league coach Anglesea and backs coach Hayward steered Sale to a second straight win in the competition.
Sean Cox and Rhys Crane went over for first-half tries while Matty James kicked a total of 13 points as the visitors built on last week's emphatic triumph over London Irish.
"From my point of view it was obviously a harder game and different pressures to the Irish home game, coming away from home in itself can be a different experience for younger lads," Anglesea stated.
"So we're overjoyed to have won, but there are things to work on and certain times in pressure we made the wrong decision, but the good thing is we've won and still got that momentum.
"It was a far tougher test for our front row than the week before, but the front row have stood up."
Hayward added: "With so many changes it was important Pete and myself kept the same philosophy of a high tempo and a lot of attacking play. Our progression work up the field was very good.
"It's important to blood guys in the A League at this level. Fortunately enough for us today we managed to do that and still got the result and the guys have got some really valuable experience there.
"In terms of this competition, we've got Dragons in January and we could be playing Saracens for a place in the semi-final. We wouldn't have envisaged ourselves in this position at the start.
"The young guys have stepped up and done themselves proud and put us in a great position for January."
Key rues slow start
Meanwhile, Leeds endured their ninth straight domestic defeat despite a second-half rally that brought them a losing bonus point.
Scott Barrow and Scott Mathie scored their tries with conversions for Christian Lewis-Pratt - who missed two first-half penalties - and Ceiron Thomas.
Leeds director of rugby Andy Key said: "I'm massively disappointed, we let ourselves down badly in that first half.
"We didn't perform, the heartening thing is the way we played second half.
"The frustration is the same for players, fans, management - why does it take us to go 17-3 down before we start to perform how we know we can.
"The hardest thing is if we had the answer we wouldn't be doing it. It's not our prep, not what the players are doing during the week, but why they do it during a game is difficult to say.
"We can still take some momentum, it doesn't matter what level you're playing at, there will always be positives to take.
"For us it was important to get a performance in the second half, one that we're confident and proud of to take into the Exeter game next week. And we did that.
"I just wish I had the answers for why we started to so badly, because we massively let ourselves down in the first half."
