Sale v London Irish: Teams
Sale have made only one change to their starting line-up for their Aviva Premiership contest with London Irish at Edgeley park on Friday.
Last Updated: 08/09/11 9:57pm
Sale have made only one change to their starting line-up for their Aviva Premiership contest with London Irish at Edgeley park on Friday.
The Sharks suffered a 17-12 defeat to newly-promoted Worcester in their opening game of the season last weekend but have largely kept faith with the team that played at Sixways.
Prop Henry Thomas starts ahead of Vadim Cobilas, who drops to the bench, with director Steve Diamond seeing no reason to panic despite the defeat.
"Both Leicester and Saracens lost at the weekend too and let's be honest it's not a six week competition we are involved in here, it's played over 22 rounds," he said.
"There were plenty of positives to take out of last week's game."
Meanwhile, London Irish have made five changes and one positional change to the side which lost 29-24 to Harlequins last Saturday.
Clarke Dermody returns to the front row to captain the side alongside Leo Halavatau, while Alex Gray will start at openside flanker with Kieran Roche and Chris Hala'ufia alongside him in the back row.
In the backs, Daniel Bowden moves from inside centre to fly-half and will partner Darren Allinson, who comes in at scrum-half. Steve Shingler is brought in to start at inside centre.
Exiles head coach Toby Booth thinks his squad is well prepared to bounce back from their loss on the opening weekend.
He said: "The effort and endeavour that the squad have put in this week has been impressive. Sale is never an easy place to go even when they are missing 25 per cent of their squad. We look forward to the challenge."
Sale Sharks:15 Rob Miller, 14 Tom Brady, 13 Andrew Higgins, 12 Will Addison, 11 Joaquin Tuculet, 10 Nick Macleod, 9 Dwayne Peel, 8 Mark Easter, 7 David Seymour (c), 6 James Gaskell, 5 Fraser McKenzie, 4 Kearnan Myall, 3 Henry Thomas, 2 Joe Ward, 1 Lee Imiolek.
Replacements: 16 Neil Briggs, 17 Aston Croall, 18 Henry Thomas, 19 Tom Holmes, 20 Scott Mathie, 21 Jordan Davies, 22 Kyle Tonetti, 23 Charlie Amesbury.
London Irish: 15 Tom Homer; 14 Topsy Ojo, 13 Jonathan Joseph, 12 Steve Shingler, 11 Marland Yarde, 10 Dan Bowden, 9 Darren Allinson, 8 Chris Hala'ufia, 7 Alex Gray, 6 Kieran Roche, 5 Matt Garvey, 4 Nick Kennedy, 3 Leo Halavatau, 2 David Paice, 1 Clarke Dermody (c).
Replacements: 16 James Buckland; 17 Max Lahiff; 18Mark George; 19 Tom Alexander; 20 Ed Siggery; 21 Adam Thompstone; 22 Guy Armitage; 23 Paul Hodgson.