Saints 'left points out there' at Sale but Dowson hails 'outstanding' effort of his players

The black, green and gold went toe to toe with last season's Gallagher Premiership runners-up and dominated large parts of the game.

The away side created plenty of opportunities to add to their tally, but they found it tough to penetrate a stubborn Sale side.

The Sharks were submerged towards the end of the game, giving away a string of penalties and losing fly-half Rob du Preez to the sin bin.

But somehow the hosts held out, leaving Saints to head home with just a losing bonus point for their efforts.

"What we're going to talk about is that I felt we gave ourselves enough opportunities to get over the line there at the end," Saints boss Dowson said.

"Fair play to Sale, they held us out but there's a few times when we dropped the ball and gave it away when we were in scoring positions.

"We did lots of the things we've worked on in pre-season and identified in terms of our defence and the integration.

"I thought a lot of our collisions were very good, our defensive system was very good and the effort and energy the boys put in was outstanding throughout.

"So there are loads of things we'll look back on and be pleased with, but it's just not the right scoreline.

“Fair play to Sale in how they stick around in games, but we felt we left some points out there by not being clinical enough.”