The manager and his staff have lost their jobs as a result of recent events, but the players must also take a serious look at themselves.”Vaughan has also dismissed Mungall’s assistant, Gary Stevens, and Chester’s physiotherapist, Chris Malkin. The chairman’s first priority is to appoint a caretaker manager prior to tomorrow’s crucial home game against City’s relegation rivals, Hayes.At the other end of the Conference, Dagenham & Redbridge returned to the top of the table with a 4-2 win at Hayes on Boxing Day. Junior McDougald scored twice for the Daggers, who were desperate to recover their form after a surprising 5-1 home thrashing by Telford United last Saturday, and there was a goal each from Ken Charlery and Mark Janney.Dagenham are a point clear at the top thanks to the two points dropped by the pre-Christmas leaders, Boston United, who were held to a 1-1 draw at Nuneaton Borough. It is looking like a two-team title race, as Boston are 10 points clear of third-placed Yeovil Town, who have played two games more than the top two.Neville Southall, the new Dover manager, enjoyed his first Kent derby. The former Everton and Wales goalkeeper saw his side beat Margate 1-0 in front of a crowd of 3,676 at Hartsdown Park.

The scorer was Dover’s new defender Jimmy Aggrey, signed on Christmas Eve from Torquay.. Among the honoured guests at Welford Road yesterday was a Leicester pensioner who had faithfully followed the fortunes of the Tigers for 60 years, so at least one of the 17,000 audience could remember when his side last lost a league match on their own mudheap.On this evidence, the English champions in perpetuity may never lose a home game again. Sale, full of ideas and bristling with hostile intent, made a decent fist of the first half, yet finished so far off the pace that they were fortunate to escape as lightly as they did.
The gut-wrenching effort involved in living with a Leicester team in full flood is so great that 40 minutes of parity is the best a visiting side can expect. Sale were very much at the races throughout the opening period – they were dangerous out wide, they claimed the opening try through Jason Robinson and were still ahead as half-time beckoned – but the chances of them doing it all over again were on the far-fetched side of remote.”A second half against Leicester is always particularly testing, and when they bring people like Neil Back off the bench for the last 20 minutes or so, it reinforces the fact that they are stronger than anyone else in the Premiership,” Jim Mallinder, the Sale coach, admitted.

“It would cost a fortune to buy in a squad capable of matching them position for position. We genuinely believed we could get a result from this game and what happened in the first half confirmed us in that opinion. But there was only one side in it after the break, and it wasn’t us.”If Sale were not in the game, they were very definitely in the scraps. Scott Lines stood his ground as Ben Kay, capped by England during the autumn internationals, lost his rag early on, and there was real fun and games in the latter stages as Alex Sanderson went after the eternally provocative Austin Healey – presumably by popular demand – and then picked a fight with the entire Leicester pack. Privately, the Tigers accused Sanderson of spitting at one of their number. Publicly, their team manager, Dean Richards, was a paragon of diplomacy. “I wasn’t in a position to see,” he said, predictably.There were any number of Tigers who failed to spot Robinson as he motored away for a trademark try at the end of the first quarter.

Mel Deane rattled Leon Lloyd in midfield, forcing the centre to spill the ball and concede a scrum near half-way. Robinson ran blind off the set-piece, slipped between Lewis Moody and Steve Booth down the narrow channel, outpaced Andy Goode and completed the score as Geordan Murphy, his opposite number, slipped while moving in for the tackle. Charlie Hodgson converted, and the temperature of the contest soared as a result of this unexpected turn of events.Hodgson looked a class operator as his forwards, notably Stu Pinkerton and Kevin Yates, produced some usable ball in the early stages: quick with his hands as well as on his feet, the outside-half frequently worked Mark Cueto and the strong-running Anthony Elliott into threatening positions. But he repeatedly disappeared up rats’ alley as the Leicester pack took charge at the set-pieces, and coughed up the ball in contact on any number of occasions. By the end, he was as frazzled as the rest of his side.Leicester hit the lead on 39 minutes when Lloyd flummoxed the Sale defence to score to the left of the posts, and claimed the decisive score 62 seconds after the restart, Darren Garforth barrelling over from close range after a long rumble from his fellow front-rower Dorian West. Murphy was next up, diving over in the left corner after a withering spell of muscular pressure exerted by a now rampant Tigers pack, and the bonus point was secured when Booth slipped away from Hodgson to score on the “wrong” wing.Not that Leicester actually require bonus points these days: when all is said and done, it makes little difference whether the champions are 16 or 17 points clear at the top of the Premiership. The issue is well and truly settled.Leicester: Tries Lloyd, Garforth, Murphy, Booth; Conversions Goode, Murphy; Penalties Goode 2; Drop goal Booth.