SALE maintained their winning start to the new Guinness Premiership campaign to extend Bristol's sorry losing run in the competition to nine matches last night.

Richard Hill's men are without a league win since March after going down to the big-spending Sharks in an uninspiring, try-less contest at the Memorial Stadium.

The only positives for head coach Hill and his club's supporters were the losing bonus point – their first point of the new campaign – and a brief second-half rally that threatened a comeback.

But Bristol did not have the nous to break down their streetwise visitors, who clinched victory thanks to three long-range penalties from New Zealand centre Luke McAlister.

Adrian Jarvis and Ed Barnes replied for Bristol, but Hill's battlers came up just short ahead of Friday's crunch trip to Newcastle.

The match began in error-strewn fashion, with Sale first to threaten when summer recruits Dwayne Peel and Mathew Tait combined down the left, before Bristol's defence managed to regroup.

Bristol had their moments, too, launching one fruitless attack from a turnover and another following a calamitous spell of play from Sale.

They were awarded a penalty when Tom Arscott's twisting, turning run was halted and Sale hands wandered into the resulting ruck, but Jarvis dragged his effort across the posts.

Sale eventually took the lead, going in front from a long-range McAlister penalty after Bristol centre Barnes had been yellow-carded for deliberately knocking the ball away in a show of dissent.

But rather than struggle while they had to cope with a numerical disadvantage, Bristol drew level shortly before Barnes returned to the action.

Alfie To'oala's direct run into the Sale 22 punched a hole in the visiting defence, and when he was stopped and cover arrived, Sebastien Chabal strayed offside to tackle Graeme Beveridge.

Neil Brew took the ball and ran over the line, but referee David Rose had already signalled for the penalty and brought play back, Jarvis this time finding the middle of the posts.

With Bristol back to full strength, Sale almost regained the lead, only for Chris Jones to undo a promising forwards move when he knocked on just short of the line.

A teasing up-and-under from David Lemi caused brief panic in the visiting defence, but Bristol were unable to take advantage and the half drew to a close with the sides level at 3-3.

With poor kicking from hand undermining both sides' attempts to build any kind of platform, for long periods the match struggled for any kind of rhythm.

Sale were perhaps a touch fortuitous to be awarded a penalty when Rose felt Bristol had dropped a scrum, but that made little difference to McAlister, who kicked another 40-metre penalty with minimal fuss.

And the versatile All Black made Bristol's task even more difficult when he kicked another penalty from an almost identical position – after Joe El Abd had dived in at a ruck – to put the visitors 9-3 up with 25 minutes to play.

Bristol roared back, breaching the Sale 22-metre line and testing the visiting defence with a series of intricate cross-field moves – but when their big chance came and Neil Briggs overthrew a line-out, Dan Ward-Smith failed to grab possession and the momentum was briefly lost.

But Bristol knocked Sale off their own scrum, launched another attack – and won a penalty when the visiting team strayed offside. With little more than 10 minutes left, Barnes – who moved to fly-half when Jarvis went off at half-time – kept his cool to send the ball between the posts to make it 9-6.

Sale were now being forced to defend their lead from deep – but when they handled at a ruck 45 metres from their line, with six minutes to play, Barnes could not find the target.

And that was to prove their final chance of the evening as Sale ruthlessly kept the ball in the Bristol 22 for the closing minutes.

Bristol: L Arscott; T Arscott, N Brew, E Barnes, D Lemi; A Jarvis (G Barden 41), G Beveridge (H Thomas 79); A Clarke, S Linklater (D Blaney 80), J Hobson, M Sambucetti (R Winters 61), N Budgett, A To'oala (R Pennycook 61), J El Abd (capt), D Ward-Smith. Reps not used: P Bracken, V Lilo.

Scorers: Pens – Jarvis, Barnes.

Sin-binned: Barnes (16-27, dissent).

Sale Sharks: M Tait; M Cueto, L McAlister, L Thomas, R Lamont; C Hodgson, D Peel (R Wigglesworth 69); A Sheridan, S Bruno (N Briggs 57), E Roberts (S Turner 75), C Jones, D Schofield (J White 61), K Ormsby, L Abrahams (S Cox 74), S Chabal (capt). Reps not used: C Bell, O Ripol.

Scorers: Pens – McAlister (3).

Ref: D Rose. Att:8,111.