After a sparkling September in which they could do no wrong and swept all before them, the Sharks' runaway express had been grounded by a series of punctures.
Last Friday's 24-21 defeat by Bath in the EDF Energy Cup was Sale's third setback at Edgeley Park on the bounce and their fourth defeat in five outings so far this month.
And with their squad hit by injury and Test call-ups and facing a daunting EDF trip to Leicester Tigers - appropriately enough on Hallow'een - it's fair to say director of rugby Philippe Saint-Andre will be glad to see the back of October.
But as he reflected on a narrow defeat by the West Country side, which ended the Sharks' hopes of progressing through to the EDF semi- finals, Saint-Andre was keen to point to the positives.
"At the moment, it is a very, very fine line. At the beginning of the season we were winning close games - now we are losing them," he admitted.
"But in this competition we have developed a lot of young players - all of our front row on Friday - Martin Halsall, Rob O'Donnell and Marc Jones - were very young and they did very well.
"Likewise, Carl Fearns and David Tait did well in the back row and scrum-halves Chris Leck and Will Cliff also had good games so there were positives to take out of the game.
"The bad thing was losing, especially from being 13-0 up but a few mistakes cost us the game.
"However, these players need to play at this level to improve and we'll need some of them during the Guinness Premiership in November when we have big games against Worcester, Wasps and Leicester, so its good experience for them
"Of course it's not nice to lose at home. It hurts the coaching staff, the players and the fans, but we need to look at the positives.
"We are still third in the Guinness Premiership, we still have a chance of qualifying into the Heineken Cup quarter- finals and in this year's EDF competition, our young guys played well against Cardiff and again against Bath."
Do you think Sale will bounce back? Have your say.
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Well it is a marathon not a sprint but we must be regarded as outsiders for the QF of the Heinekin Cup and we traditionally have not performed well during the internationals. I hope I'm wrong but I still thinkwe were wrong to sacrifice the EDF
I think that the team selections for the EDF matches have shown a lack of respect for the paying supporters and PSA's attitude of the competition. Winning is a habit as proved at the start of the season. Fielding weak sides has led to 4 defeats in 5 with three of them at home which should be our fortress!!! Losing has now become a habit and morale must be low. All fans realise that academy players have to be given 1st team experience but so many in one game is poor and its results that the club will live and die by. If Sale want to continue to build on their supporters base, they need to take these contests seriously. Soon their will be crowds lower than 5000 if they dont start taking the edf seriously. If PSA cannot treat the contest with importance, the day ticket fans will soon start to stay away. If I am to seriously consider buying m first ever season tickets for myself and my family for the 2009/10 season which I can expect to pay £1200, then I do hope that I will not be sitting in an half-empty statium on nights like these.