"It's not just Sale Sharks it affects, it's the whole integrity of the league that the decision is about. We have been brought into it because we are the next side in the competition. But let's be frank and honest, it's about the integrity of how you run the club that's the issue, not Sale v London Welsh."
London Irish could have banished their own relegation concerns with a win but lost their way after going 14-3 up inside 10 minutes with Guy Armitage burrowing over from close range and tighthead prop Halani Aulika slipping past wing Charlie Amesbury with embarrassing ease.
But Irish crumpled in defence themselves and were indebted to 18 points in kicks from Tom Homer for regaining the lead and their composure and preserving an unbeaten home record that stretches back to Dec 22. He slotted four penalties, three of them from long range, and converted all three tries but Brian Smith, the Irish director of rugby, was unhappy with his side's efforts.
"We are disappointed. We had such a handy lead to begin with but we sat back and basically admired the good work that we had done and went to sleep," he said. "We couldn't close out the first half and got bitten on the backside straight after half-time when we were staring down the barrel of a 10-point deficit.
"The positives were that we showed some good fighting qualities to come back from that.
"But it's still a bit embarrassing that we scored two tries and then went to sleep. We did some good things but defensively we were a shambles which is disappointing because last week [against Worcester] we could have played for three hours and no one was going to score a try against us."
The match video will make grim viewing for the respective defence coaches and also for London Irish's former England hooker David Paice, whose first-half sin-binning opened the door for Sale's fightback.
Henry Thomas rumbled over from Andrei Ostrikov's line-out tap down immediately after Paice departed, and Sale made the extra man count when former England wing Mark Cueto crossed on the overlap for the 77th Premiership try of his career.
"The yellow card played a pretty big part because they scored two tries while Paice was off," Smith said.
"It wasn't the smartest thing in the world to do. We had already been penalised for playing the scrum-half rather than the ball when the ball was free and we did it in our own 22 and we paid the price."
When Kearnan Myall rounded off a sustained attack on the stroke of half-time and James Gaskell crossed early in the second period after Amesbury had partly redeemed himself for his earlier lapse by dispossessing Sailosi Tagicakibau and scooting down the left, Sale seemed set for their second away league win of the season.
But Max Lahiff's close-range try, which was referred to television match official Graham Hughes, and Homer's accurate kicking, meant that they had to settle for the draw.
"We're very happy. We let the game slip in the last quarter. We started off poorly but showed some resilience to come back and take a 10-point lead," Diamond said. "We just couldn't hold on to it. It shows the measure of both teams, both under pressure, both wanted to play and those defensive mistakes do come when the game is played like that."
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