A sense of dja vu engulfed the Stoop on Saturday as fly-half Adrian Jarvis missed a late kick to end NEC Harlequins' hopes in the EDF Energy Anglo-Welsh Cup semi-finals.

The 22-year-old's failed touchline conversion, which would have given Quins their first win of the season over Sale Sharks, was eerily similar to Jeremy Staunton's penalty miss against the same side 17 months ago which condemned Quins to a season in National Division One.

Director of rugby Dean Richards had words of consolation for Jarvis after Saturday's 28-27 defeat.

"We scored four tries to three and played a hell of a lot of rugby and should have come away with the win." he said.

"But we missed a lot of points with the boot and gifted them two soft tries.

"I would never blame Adrian. We scored four tries and he was instrumental in all of them. He is improving with every game.

"With the amount of opportunities we had we should have scored a couple more tries, so it shouldn't have come down to that. It would have been a fitting accolade if he had have won the game for us with the last kick of the match."

Quins overcame the late withdrawal of England centre Stuart Abbott with the recurrence of a knee injury to put on their most convincing display of the season against the Guinness Premiership champions.

Stand-in Craig McMullen got Quins to a flying start when he crossed after three minutes.

Sale's Sean Cox replied before winger David Strettle got his first try for the club ahead of an exchange of penalties and a try from Oriol Ripol that gave Sale a 20-15 lead at the break.

Ugo Monye handed Quins the lead soon after the restart but Sale took a winning advantage through the boot of Daniel Larrachea and a try from Sililo Martens.

Tom Williams scored in injury time to set up Jarvis's crushing finale.

Richards insists Quins' first win of the season is coming ever closer, even with Sunday's trip to Premiership top dogs Bristol Shoguns coming next.

"We remain confident and refuse to panic. I know the win is not far away," he said.

"Two years ago we lost eight matches on the trot and only went down by a point. Statistics like that give you encouragement and things are nowhere near as bad now as they were then."