Sale Sharks - surprising strong second half or illusion

Sitting in an airport with hours to kill got me thinking about Sale - I don't know why, but so it goes when bored and waiting in an airport.

As this weekend begins the Premiership teams have played 20 games.
After the first 10 games Sale looked a pretty good bet to be relegated. But now, they have 31 points and their season is safe. They have quietly generated a decent second half of the season.

After the first ten matches:
1 win, 9 losses. scored 129, yielded 271 for a difference of -142 and, had 6 league points

For the second ten matches;
5 wins, 1 draw, 4 losses, scored 220, yielded 258, for a difference of -38, and 25 league points

total for all 20 matches:
6 wins, 1 draw, 13 losses, scored 349, yielded 529, for a difference of -180, and 31 total league points

Clearly it is a very different thing to win when competing for the top spots and when playing near the bottom. However, if they had the same record in the first 10 matches whch they had in the second 10 matches, then they would be competing for a Heineken cup position. So my question is which is the real Sale? The poor team from the first 10, the competitive team from the second 10, or something in the miiddle? Does this point to some real hope for next season?

They sneaked into the Top 6 last season and beat the Blues in the HEC this year. The much derided LV cup kickstarted their season and they were able to turn round the losing habit. Last season they flung the ball around, looked good in attack but Top 6 was overperforming.

Their start to thiks season was not reflective of the squad, they were better than that - and I went out on a limb and stated that they would not finish bottom after they had lost their 6th match in a row (the MorganView hybrid owes be a forfeit for that bet ).

Now while they have a lot of internationals in the squad, many are the rather iffy sort - Buckley for instance. They also tried to change their style of play and went through a number of backroom changes and looked like a team with no direction. If Sale had possessed even half the team spirit we saw with London Welsh they would have been competing with Exter, Bat and Wasps for the final HEC spot.

In short I do not deem them a Top 4 side - but they should still have been mid-table (ish)