Newcastle Falcons consultant director of rugby Steve Diamond told BBC Sport: "Credit to Sale, they overpowered us in a couple of instances, but we didn't take our opportunities and were poor in defence. "We should have been more competitive than we were. It's not endeavour, but we don't think clearly under pressure. We panic a little bit. "We've not had sharp words in the changing room for a long time, but we have tonight." Sale Sharks director of rugby Alex Sanderson told BBC Sport: "I'm very pleased. This is a difficult place to come as they are very good at making it very competitive. "The boys looked super physical tonight. They've trained with confidence this week and it transferred into our attacking ambition, which we have worked really hard on over the last break. They looked like they wanted to score tries. "The mantra for this was we can't look past Friday night. Now we've got the champions at home [Northampton Saints], which is exciting. Get a result then and we're properly back in it."