Saracens, who last week proved themselves the best side on the road when they won at Gloucester, took their unbeaten home record beyond a year on Sunday, seeing off a robust challenge which would have been a lot stronger had Sale not missed all their kicks.
Steve Diamond's Sharks took the edge off the scoreline with two late tries but that was after Saracens had emptied their bench and destroyed the rhythm and control which had brought them 23 unanswered points.
If it was a bloodless victory, pretenders to Saracens' domestic throne will be pondering the growing gap between the top two – unbeaten Harlequins are first – and the rest as the Premiership breaks for its first bout of European rugby. Saracens will now ready themselves to face Treviso, possibly one of the surprise packages in this year's Heineken Cup, but they are already selling tickets for the Ospreys at Wembley and packages costing up to £1,610 for a trip to Cape Town in January, where they will play their home pool game against Biarritz.
If those two venues are considerably more exotic than Vicarage Road, Saracens will hope to take their Watford form with them. They have won their last nine home Premiership matches. Yesterday's visit was Sale's 17th and the only time they have won here was in 2005, when Diamond was in the middle of a two-year stint as coach of Saracens.
As Diamond admitted on Sunday, Saracens have grown up since then. "They have quality running through them," he said. "Those four [missed] kicks at goal probably would have given us a bonus point but we didn't deserve anything."
After reshaping Sale in his own image and getting off to a decent start to the season, Diamond has worries. His team have slipped to four successive defeats and they came close to coming apart at the seams against Leicester. This match never got to such extremes but after a good first half they were not at the races and it did not help that they had Charlie Hodgson running the show against them.
The all-time leading Premiership points-scorer, who played 150 times over 11 seasons with the Cheshire club before joining Saracens in the summer, has formed a useful partnership with the man thought by some to be the next England fly-half, Owen Farrell. Hodgson directed play while Farrell, playing at centre, kicked the points.
Unusually, the first meaningful contribution from Hodgson, who will be 31 on Saturday, was to make a try-saving tackle, hanging on to the left heel of Will Addison when the wing looked to have been set free. Next, Hodgson upended the Sale tighthead, Henry Thomas, but just when it looked as though he might spend the afternoon under the cosh, he cropped up in his more usual role, setting up a try with the deftest of passes.
The beneficiary was David Strettle, the right wing looping into midfield to take Hodgson's delayed offload and speed into the space the fly-half had created. After losing the kicking duties to Farrell last week, Hodgson again stood aside and the young centre was accurate from wide out. Saracens' director of rugby, Mark McCall, confirmed that the two had sorted out the kicking between themselves.
"They thought it the right thing if the guy in form continued," he said. "Those guys runs themselves. I don't interfere."
Sale ended the half on top, thanks to some neat work from their stand-in scrum half, Will Cliff. Before half-time he sent Sam Tuitupou bursting up the middle and after the interval he caught Saracens napping with a quickly tapped penalty and freed Addison, only for the wing to be denied a second time – this time by a covering tackle from Chris Wyles.
However, by then there was more than a suggestion that the game was getting away, Farrell having kicked three penalties to stretch the lead to 16 points before the Saracens pack put things beyond doubt with a rolling maul that wound its way in field before Matt Stevens was awarded the try. Farrell kicked the conversion to make his tally for the day 13 points from five successful attempts but he was about to join an eight-man exodus. The Sale full-back, Rob Miller, and replacement No8, Mark Easter, then scored tries.
Saracens are expected to announce soon the signing of the Wigan rugby league centre Joel Tomkins. The champions are looking stronger by the minute.
Saracens Goode (Short, 53); Strettle, Farrell (Adam Powell, 63), Barritt, Wyles; Hodgson, De Kock (Spencer, 61); Carstens (Gill 53), Brits (George, 61), Nieto (Stevens, 53), Borthwick (capt), Botha (Smith, 53), Brown, Burger, Joubert (Saull, 72).
Tries Strettle, Stevens Cons Farrell 2 Pens Farrell 3.
Sale Miller; Addison, Leota, Tuitupou (capt), Cueto; Macleod (Lavea, 61), Cliff (Willis, 69); Dickinson (Cobilas, 61), Taylor, Thomas (Buckley, 56), McKenzie (Myall, 64), Gaskell, Vernon, Seymour, Andy Powell (Easter, 66).
Tries Millar, Easter.
Referee M Fox (Leicestershire) Attendance 6,012.
