Exeter Chiefs' eight-game winning run in all competitions has come to an end following an 18-11 defeat against Sale Sharks at the AJ Bell Stadium this evening.
Damian Welch was shown a yellow card inside the opening 10 minutes for bringing a maul down, and having failed to learn their lesson, the visitors were soon reduced to 13 men when Ben White was sent to the sin bin.
Sale made the most of their numerical advantage by edging ahead through Danny Cipriani's resulting penalty, although Gareth Steenson managed to level things up from under the sticks with 22 minutes played.
The home side did manage to regain their lead heading into the interval, though, with Cipriani finding the sticks from around 35 metres out for his second successful pen of the night.
The game's first try came a little over 10 minutes into the second half courtesy of Mark Cueto, who crossed over following some solid work from the forwards in another maul.
Exeter turned up the pressure as they looked to reduce the arrears, and they did exactly that when Steenson split the sticks once more, although their hopes were short lived due to Cipriani crossing over in the corner just moments later following Cueto's fine offload.
Replacement Andrei Ostrikov was shown the contest's third yellow after stopping an advancing maul which, combined with Thomas Waldrom's try, gave the Chiefs some real hope late on.
They were unable to add any more points to their tally, however, as Sale held out to claim all three points to extend their own winning run to four games.
The victory lifts them up to fourth in the Aviva Premiership table, five points behind Sharks in second place who bagged a bonus point this evening.
Daniel Lewis
