Sharks in control

Outside half Larrechea, who made 10 Heineken Cup appearances for Sale in the 2005 / 2006 and 2006 / 2007 seasons, accepts that the 12-51 Round 3 home defeat means Bayonne are playing for pride in front of the Sky Sports cameras.

"Sale Sharks only have big names in their squad and it is almost impossible to compare them to Aviron Bayonnais," said Larrechea. "They have at least a dozen international players so they have a very impressive squad.

"To be honest, I can hardly see any weaknesses in their side at all. I was lucky enough to be a champion of the English championship and play with them two seasons and I know full well that what was already a high quality team has been strengthened even more with the signings of top of other quality international players.

"I think we need to try and take them by surprise from the start and try to disturb the game of their half backs, especially their key man Charlie Hodgson because if you let him play his game then you are in trouble.

"He is the game keeper of Sale as he sets the tempo and you can understand that, with the quality players around him, our task will be immense. I think all that we can do is put pressure on them and raise the physical challenge.

"We have to go out and play the game, we have to commit, try things and enjoy ourselves."

While the Sharks are surging towards automatic Pool leader qualification with a maximum 15 points, Bayonne have also fallen behind on the home front.

"We came rapidly back down to earth after the beginning of the French Championship," he said. "We won two fixtures then lost the following two and we know we are far from where we would like to be and that we have a lot of work to do. It already seems the season will be long and difficult.

"But the spirit of the two tournaments - the European Challenge Cup and the French Championship - is vastly different.

"In the European Challenge we can try a lot more things and are expansive in the way we play - which is thrilling - but that is hard to achieve in the Top 14. The Challenge Cup allows us to unleash ourselves so we must make the most of it as such opportunities are rare this season.

"The French championship is psychologically harder but the European Challenge Cup allows us to achieve things, to enjoy ourselves and take pleasure in playing.

"Having said that, playing against Sale has already proved far from being a picnic. Obviously we haven't been good lately at producing momentum and we have not been efficient in closing sides down. This had already caused us some problems against Biarritz Olympique and Stade Français Paris.

"But some of our players have contributed a lot to our game, including No 8 Dwayne Haare, while Craig Gower is also becoming more mature and refining his skills and at the back I am impressed by the quality of Sam Gerber."