While the league campaign has been a struggle, Alex Sanderson's team have shown up well in Pool A and a bonus-point win at Corpacq Stadium stretched their lead at the top.

Exeter, whose discipline let them down, struck first in the 11th minute with a try by left-wing Charlie Poynton, but Sale's response was instant as wing Alex Wills outjumped the Chiefs defence to grab a cross-kick and touch down.

The sin-binning of Paul Brown-Bampoe for taking Wills out in the air gave the home side a man advantage for 10 minutes and they exploited it with a try by Ma'asi-White.

Ben Coen had an opportunity to cut the deficit with a penalty, only to strike the post from 40 metres out, but the Exeter stand-off made amends with the last play of the half, stepping over from Zack Wimbush's pass to score the Chiefs' second try.

Exeter, with 145kg prop Ehren Painter back and making his presence felt after almost two years out with a knee injury, were dominating the scrum but it was the Sharks' driving maul which came to the fore after the break to pull them clear.

Three maul tries, one from hooker Alfie Longstaff and two for his replacement Nathan Jibulu did the damage with Sale adding a penalty try as Exeter illegally disrupted another drive close to their line. Hooker Max Norey was yellow-carded.

Exeter did though manage a try-scoring bonus point with prop Archie McArthur and captain Sam Wolstenholme crossing in the second half to nudge them off the bottom of Pool A.

I won't let the lads accept that tonight was OK - Baxter

"Every game's important because we've got to try and find some winning momentum.

"I've just said to the lads, 'I'm not going to try to find positives for you every week'. If you start finding positives in losing when you shouldn't, what you do is you actually start to accept being a loser, and I'm not going to let the lads just accept that tonight was OK.

"They've got to learn quicker. What annoys me is everybody says, 'these lads have got to play'. Sometimes there's a reason why they don't play and it's because they do silly things. We see them doing them in training and it makes you doubt picking them, because you're worried about what might happen in the game. The problem is that's what's been reflected tonight.

"I'm not going to keep saying, 'well done, we scored some good tries', because so much of the territory we gave up was completely brainless territory.

"The penalty count is against us anyway, but if we hadn't been able to get scrum pens, the penalty count would have been ridiculous against us."

Replacements: Jibulu, Spencer, Bell, Logan, Austin, Bayston, Pasco, D Opoku-Fordjour

Replacements: Norey, McArthur, J Roots, Nkwocha, Bailey, Cairns, Batson, McIntosh