Shell-shocked Sale boss Steve Diamond admitted Friday’s feeble second-half capitulation to Exeter Chiefs left him feeling ‘embarrassed.’

After racing into a 20-0 first-half lead, the Sharks somehow contrived to throw away victory, leaking 23 unanswered points to the visitors as they slumped to a 23-30 loss.

Sale’s misery was encapsulated by a disastrous last minute pass by Tasesa Lavea that was gratefully intercepted by Exeter’s Ignacio Mieres who raced in under the posts to deny Diamond’s men even the hollow consolation of a draw.

Beforehand, the Sale chief had described the Premiership clash as the Sharks’ most pivotal match of the season.

Desire

Instead, it turned into the biggest letdown of the campaign to date.

Instead of heading back into the top four, the defeat sent Sale sliding down to seventh in the table.

And as he surveyed the wreckage, a fuming Diamond didn’t mince his words.

“I’m embarrassed. There’s a lot of players who have got to look at themselves and go away and see why we have been beaten by a team on desire,” blasted the Edgeley Park executive director of sport.

“As a coach, you have to tell the players how you feel and where it comes from.

“There’s a certain element of the game which is statistical and a certain element which is about desire and we got beaten in the desire stakes in the second-half.

“But I can’t do anything about that – it’s up to them as individuals.

“Looking at what happened at the end, we got a knock to Rob Miller so we had to put Tasesa on. He’s an international player and if we run the game out we get two points and in this league that’s what you do. Instead we got one losing bonus point.

“We were good in the first half and Exeter came out after the break, as we expected them to do, but we were in control of the game and we just let it ebb away from us.

“Decisions didn’t go our way but we are a good side and we should be able to cope in those situations.

“Exeter did really well, they  got points on the board every time they came down at our end and we just couldn’t do anything about it.”

Sale’s cause was also hardly helped by an inconsistent display by referee Tim Wigglesworth, who controversially sin-binned Sharks prop Henry Thomas early in the second-half for what he deemed consistent Sharks infringements.

Eyebrows were also raised by Wigglesworth’s decision to award Exeter a penalty try just as Thomas was preparing to come back on.

“When you are able to listen to the referee, as we are, you hear him telling Exeter to get away from the ball all through the first half.

“Ironically we get a yellow card pretty much after two decisions in the second-half,” Diamond added.

“The inconsistency is pretty hard to stomach but that’s the way it is.”

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