Northern outposts turn into hotbeds

Zurich Premiership: Leeds and Sale unite in upsetting established order and start to win over new audience

There was a sinister sign in front of the ground at the Headingley stadium: "Beware – chemicals on the pitch". It might have been referring to the gunpowder in the boots of Braam van Straaten. The former Springbok kicks like a pack of mules, and they have not seen the likes of such point-harvesting since Lewis Jones trained his rugby union genius on rugby league with Leeds 50 years ago.

On Friday night, Van Straaten reminded Sale that you are not safe conceding a penalty, even in your own half. He went into this high-powered affair between the northern lights having kicked 12 goals out of 13. Van Straaten did not have such a high success rate against Sale. In the fourth minute, he missed a penalty by a couple of inches from about 65 yards. Eighty minutes later, he banged over his fifth penalty and his seventh successful kick of the night to maintain Leeds's unbeaten record in the fourth week of the Premiership.

"His exhibition of goal-kicking was quite phenomenal,'' Phil Davies, the Tykes director of rugby, said, after his side saw a 26-12 lead turn into 26-29 deep into injury time. Van Straaten's fifth penalty made it 29-29 as he and the Sale stand-off, Charlie Hodgson, also ended up all square at 19 points apiece.

In the Legends bar afterwards, Davies made the excellent flanker Cameron Mather man of the match. It should have been the even more excellent Tom Palmer, but Davies wanted to keep the lock's feet on the ground. Davies, the former Llanelli and Wales No 8, is making such an impact at Leeds that sooner or later the Welsh Rugby Union might take an interest.

Leeds's first Friday-night game at Headingley produced a crowd of just over 5,000, although it looked a lot more. What Leeds and Sale have in common, apart from the fact that both have beaten Leicester, is that they play second fiddle to football. There is also rugby league to consider, although at this rate the 13-man game could be shunted to the back of the orchestra.

When Jon Callard, Davies's assistant here, goes shopping in his local Waitrose, he can recognise Harry Kewell but the compliment is not repaid. The preferred option of both clubs is to play on Friday nights, away from the distraction of other floodlights. The result against Sale, a spectacular draw notwithstanding, was Leeds's best home crowd of the season. And, this being Yorkshire, they made their voices heard.

When Steve Hanley scored a try in the 78th minute and Hodgson had the conversion to level at 26-26, the booing was almost heroic in its conviction. Imagine the cricket scene without Yorkshire. On second thoughts...

The success of Leeds and Sale has dramatically increased the mileage on the Jaguar of the England manager, Clive Woodward. If only London can produce a contender, England's talent would have a neat geographical spread.

Brian Ashton, formerly Woodward's assistant and now England's national academy manager, was at Heading-ley to cast an eye over a few of the younger generation, including Palmer (10 out of 10) and Dan Scarbrough (five). Scarbrough, the Premiership's second-highest try-scorer behind Mark Cueto last season, is attempting to strut his stuff at full-back, but it is clear he has a huge amount to learn.

A couple of years ago, the same was said of Jason Robinson. When he was knee high to a grasshopper, Robinson was a ball-boy at the Leeds rugby league club. He was born in the city and his ambition was to play for it. It rejected him, he joined Wigan and he invariably produced some of his most punishing performances against Leeds.

On Friday night, he was paying his first visit to Headingley since leaving league, and although he ran through his customary dazzling routine, he failed to score. Instead, Cueto, who went to Argentina with England but has been omitted from Woodward's élite squad, scored Sale's first try in the 72nd minute by virtue of a brilliant dummy, and six minutes later made a break to lay on Hanley's try.

Sale's game-plan, to play it fast and wide (they can hardly wait for the arrival of the Australian centre Graeme Bond in a fortnight), finally paid off down the left flank, an area vacated by the sin-binning of the Leeds wing Diego Albanese.

Sale's tries cancelled out the two more fundamental efforts from Leeds in the first half, Mather and Chris Murphy capitalising on a series of inspired drives.

"Sale are a top side,'' Davies said. ''They have fantastic runners and finishers. The game was there for us, but there was a spell in the second half when we stopped playing. We've learned a lot from this.''

Trailing by three points with only seconds remaining after Hodgson's late, late drop goal, Leeds drove deep and won a penalty in the left-hand corner a few yards from the Sale yard. Kick for goal and a draw or go for the liner, drive and match-winning try?

"Had I been the captain, I would have gone for the try,'' Davies said, "but they make the decisions on the field and I have no argument with that. We might have got four points, but two is better than one if you know what I mean. If Diego had stayed on, we would have made it more difficult for them.''

In the first match of the season, Hodgson, whose goal-kicking was emphatically more impressive than his kicking from hand, dropped a goal with the last kick to defeat Northampton. He thought he had done a similar thing at Headingley before, in the 86th minute, Van Straaten again bisected the posts. "I expected just that,'' Jim Mallinder, the Sale coach, said. "Leeds know what they are doing, but I was delighted with the form of our back three.''

With 14 points out of a possible 20, Leeds flirted with the top of the Premiership. Their modest ambition at the beginning of the season was survival. They are now working to a new agenda.