How Gloucester's owner Tom Walkinshaw, taking a weekend break from the tense business of preserving Arrows' formula one future, would love his motor racing interests to run as smoothly as his rugby club.

The Premiership season is an awfully long race but at this rate the rest of the grid will be choking on cherry-and-white exhaust fumes for the foreseeable future.

Already it is tempting to predict no one will lower Gloucester's colours at Kingsholm, given the scale of the second-half thrashing meted out to last year's runners-up on Saturday. If winning consistently on the road remains an elusive skill, enough power and pace was evident to suggest even the trickiest chicanes will hold no fears.

Gloucester appear to have reached a new level under Nigel Melville's stewardship, passing the "Cluedo test" in the way that all formidable sports teams must. Whether it happens to be James Simpson-Daniel with the dagger or big Junior Paramore clutching the lead piping, Melville's men can choose from an awesome range of different devices, as a bloodied Sale can testify.

Sale's director of rugby, Jim Mallinder, was only half right when he used the word "juggernaut" to describe what hit the Sharks, who led 8-6 approaching the interval. While Gloucester's sandbag tactics in the first half were all part of the softening-up process, they looked even more dangerous when they varied the point of attack and the more sparsely built James Forrester was the home forward who ultimately did the most damage.

At 21, Forrester is hailed by his new forwards coach, Dean Ryan, as "a fantastic talent" but his club hope to prevent too much hype descending on his athletic shoulders. That may prove impossible if the back-row flyer continues like this, though. He emerged as a replacement to score the second and sixth tries and dummy his way spectacularly past the cover on halfway to instigate another for Tom Beim.

With Henry Paul flitting with increasing confidence between full-back and fly-half after wriggling over for his side's first try on half-time, the Sharks were gone long before Vaughan Going came on as a 69th-minute replacement. By that stage further tries from the South African axis of Thinus Delport and Jake Boer had widened the gap and there was even time for another ominous signal of intent when the teenage wing Marcel Garvey planted the great Jason Robinson on his backside in front of the main stand.

Melville and Ryan believe there will be even more to come, once their charges gain the self-belief which comes from activating their training pitch ideas in a match. Between now and May 10, when Leicester visit Kingsholm, they will take some stopping.

Gloucester: Paul; Delport (Garvey, 75), Fanolua, Todd, Beim (Simpson-Daniel, 69); Mercier, Gomarsall; Woodman (Collazo, 69), Azam (Fortey, 63), Vickery (capt), Pearce (Fidler, 46), Cornwell, Boer, Hazell (Forrester, 23), Paramore.

Tries: Paul, Forrester 2, Beim, Delport, Boer. Cons: Mercier 4. Pens: Mercier 2.

Sale: Robinson; Cueto, Baxendell (Harris, 52), Deane, Hanley (Going, 69); Hodgson (Walshe, 65), Redpath (capt); Yates (Thorp, 56), Marais (Titterell, 56), Stewart, Jones, Schofield (Lines, 56), Sanderson (Perelini, 66), Pinkerton, Anglesea.

Try: Cueto. Pen: Hodgson.

Referee: D Pearson (Northumberland).