Premiership Rugby: Harlequins 16-24 Sale

Sale secured their place in the top two of the league with a hard-fought bonus point victory over Quins.

Tom O'Flaherty and Rob du Preez cut through the Quins defence to help the Sharks to a first half lead.

After Joe Marchant crossed, Akker van der Merwe finished off a driving maul.

Nick David slid over late for a Quins try, as Sale scored four tries.

Sale are now 12 points ahead of Quins, who have lost their last three league games, leaving the south-west London club above Gloucester on points scored.

New England head coach Steve Borthwick will have to contend with an injury scare ahead of the Six Nations after flanker Tom Curry left the game in the 16th minute with a leg injury.

After an early Allan penalty, Sale's backs spread the ball across the field and O'Flaherty got the first try in the 18th minute.

The second was grabbed by Du Preez six minutes later.

Quins got back in the game 67 seconds after the restart when the defence failed to deal with a high kick from Allan and Marchant scampered forward to score.

Allan failed to add the extras and Sale regained their eight point lead.

Allan was taken to the hospital after a clash of heads with Tuilagi and Sale's fourth score came from the forwards.

David wriggled through to score to set up an interesting final five minutes, but WillEdwards missed the conversion, meaning Quins failed to pick up a losing bonus point.

The congested nature of the table is underscored by Quins being just five points ahead of London Irish after their win over Bristol Bears.

Tabai Matson spoke to the radio.

This is a big blow for us. We were in the middle of a fight.

We need to do a better job if we want to put Sale under more pressure.

You have to defend if you are not attacking. We did not do that well.

We are in third position despite losing three in a row. We have to get our season going again in the next couple of games.

Alex Sanderson is the director or rugby player.

The pitch was muddy and the weather was terrible. I looked around and all I could see was happy faces.

The guys knew what they had to do and they were ready to go. Most of the small things were done correctly.

We feel like we are in a decent spot, and that shows how we were able to wrestle back some of the lost ground.

By any stretch, we are still in sight at the table. It is a buffer.

The injury to Tom Curry is a low grade one.

On Monday, he will have a Scan. I told him to get his head on for the Six Nations now even though these things don't turn around in a week.

David, Marchant, Allan, Care, Walker, Louw, Hammond, Herbst, White, Wallace, Dombrandt are the players who play for the Quins.

The replacements were Musk, Els, Kerrod, Matthews, Lawday, Gjaltema, and Beard.

J-L Du Preez; Reed, S James, Tuilagi, O'Flaherty, McIntyre, Van der Merwe, Schonert, Hill, T Curry, B Curry, and Warr were part of the sale.

Replacements include Ashman, Rodd,Harper, Ross, Thomas, and Carpenter.

The referee is Wayne Barnes.