IT was far from perfect, but Sharks at least put an end to their recent woes with a 17-12 win over Harlequins on Friday.

Confidence, it seems, is still in short supply at Edgeley Park and injuries have inevitably taken their toll on the squad but the team that took the field did show willing.

All that was lacking was precision in the execution - Sale wasted four good scoring chances within the first half alone - and that will surely return as they reach something like full strength once more.

Magnus Lund's sole try proved to be the bright spot in an otherwise miserable three weeks for the club and finally put an end to their try drought after an unwanted 281-minute barren spell.

"It was very important for us to win," said director of rugby Philippe Saint-Andre.

"You could see confidence was not very high in the camp - it was a bad week last week.

"We had three or four fantastic opportunities to score tries that we didn't finish but I think we showed a lot of character and deserved to win.

"We made too many mistakes and we didn't finish when we had the opportunity but we were missing 18 players during the week.

"The good news is that we will have some of those back next week but it is hard at the moment."

After their disastrous performance against Newcastle the week before, Sale showed plenty of adventure straight from the off against Harlequins.

They enjoyed the majority of the early territory and with the two Sebastiens - Bruno and Chabal - looking particularly energetic up front, they punched holes in the visitors' defence.

That said, it was actually Quins who edged themselves ahead in the opening stages, Adam Jarvis knocking over a penalty after Daniel Larrechea had missed an earlier attempt.

But Sharks failed to let this unsettle them and drew level through a perfectly struck Larrechea drop goal.

A further penalty from Larrechea edged his side in front, although it was little reward for the English champions' dominance, two overlaps going begging before they eventually settled for the three-pointer.

When Sale finally did get it right, they did so spectacularly. Magnus Lund capitalised on a mix-up in the Quins midfield and after a slick interchange of passing with Lee Thomas, completed a 50-metre break to score in the corner.

After missing the conversion, Larrechea added another penalty to extend the lead, but Sale still conspired to leave their opponents with every chance of a comeback.

A Chris Day try was chalked off for a forward pass, a bullocking run from Eifion Lewis Roberts came to nothing and a Larrechea pass was intercepted by David Strettle when it looked like Sale couldn't help but score.

And the inevitable Harlequins comeback materialised after the interval. The visitors tightened things up and bit-by-bit chipped away at Sharks' lead, Jarvis kicking three unanswered penalties to narrow the gap to two points.

But despite a less than impressive night of goal-kicking that had seen him manage just three of six attempts, it was Larrechea who got his side out of jail, scoring another penalty in injury time to finally put paid to a Harlequins side that should have been seen off by half time.

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