They tried to keep him out of the limelight but it could not be done. Danny Cipriani returned to torment the club that made him with a tour de force, as Sale inflicted a fifth consecutive defeat on Wasps in all competitions. In the process, he gave a passing impression of the carefree prodigy he used to be.
"I've always been in love with rugby," he said. "But there was a time I wasn't necessarily enjoying it. I'm deeply in love with it again."
He was meant to spend a quiet afternoon on the bench but was whistled into the action in only the seventh minute, when Joe Simpson flattened Nick MacLeod with an ugly challenge. How Simpson must wish he had not.
Cipriani's radar was finely tuned. His kicks from hand and tee were rarely off target, and a glorious show and go in the build-up to Sale's second try was a painful reminder to folk in these parts of just what the boy can do.
Much more of this, and a recall to the England team will be on the cards. The thought has occurred to the man himself. "The New Zealand tour is definitely a focus for me," he said. "Stuart [Lancaster] has stayed in touch. Hopefully there's a chance a for me if I keep performing through until the end of the season."
Sale's win was built on an early lead that was established on the back of that incident between Simpson and MacLeod – the sort of thing that might be described as clumsy by the sympathetic, despicable by the judgmental. Simpson rose to take a high ball, missed it completely and clattered MacLeod's head with his hip. The referee and television match official settled on the moderate sentence of a yellow card, which was about right.
The dazed MacLeod was helped off, never to return, which called for Cipriani's early introduction. It was not obvious why he had been denied a chance to start against his old club in the first place, and his first act was to score the penalty from around 50 yards, as if he had never been away.
Within five minutes he was slotting a conversion. Mark Cueto's chip ahead was gathered by Dave Seymour, who popped it up for his fellow scavenger Dan Braid to run in. Sale were 10 points up in less than 10 minutes.
When Simpson returned, Wasps took control for a brief period. Three Joe Carlisle penalties in seven minutes cut the deficit to one point midway through the first half but it was turning into a shapeless match, despite the sun and unfamiliar luxury of a firm pitch.
Things were to improve after the break, not that there was much shape to the Sale defence when Simpson made amends for his earlier faux-pas with Wasps's first try. Ashley Johnson fielded a kick, and two simple passes sent Simpson haring down the right to the corner. Carlisle could not convert from the corner, but he had just landed a penalty, so Wasps held a 17-10 lead.
Cue Cipriani. Wasps overthrew a defensive lineout and Sale were away. A meaty drive from Vadim Cobilas was the prelude. Cipriani was fed the ball from the ruck, and, drifting left, he passed the ball to himself, with Sammy Tuitupou's inside line as a decoy, and the way opened for him to put Johnny Leota over out wide. There may have been a little fist pump from the maestro.
He could not land the conversion, but when Matt Mullan was adjudged to have turned in at a scrum Cipriani landed a penalty from a good 45 yards on the angle to regain the lead for Sale on the hour. It was to prove enough, but just in case there was any doubt – about either the result or Cipriani's enduring talent – he sent over his third penalty with two minutes remaining. Wasps laboured in the remaining seconds, but they seem to be lacking a certain spark at the moment. The sort of thing that was once provided by you know who.
