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Danny Cipriani came off the bench to inspire Sale to a 26-22 victory over Wasps after the Sharks withstood a late fightback.
The controversial stand-off replaced the injured Nick Macleod after 19 minutes and racked up 21 points to ensure his side had a big enough lead to defend.
Cipriani kicked two first-half penalties and a conversion and set up Mark Cueto's try. Andy Goode's single penalty was Wasps' only response before the break as they struggled for continuity.
Cipriani, who was playing his first game of the season having been left out of the previous two squads, finished a jinking run by scoring after 48 minutes to give the hosts a seemingly comfortable 20-3 advantage.
But the visitors responded well as Ashley Johnson touched down before they were awarded a penalty try.
Although Cipriani kicked another penalty, Josh Bassett's score gave Goode the chance to put them ahead with the conversion but the fly-half missed and Sale's mercurial pivot sealed the win with a last-minute three-pointer.
Sale's director of rugby, Steve Diamond, was full of praise for Cipriani: "We've got a lot of competition in the squad and people have to fight and Danny's done that.
"He's come back, come on and done what he does well. He controlled the game with the pack giving him some ball. He played really well and he won us the game."
After the optimism that followed Sale's surprise victory over Gloucester, they were brought back down to earth with a 15-14 defeat to Newcastle Falcons last week. That prompted Diamond, into a number of changes for the visit of Wasps as Ross Harrison, Tommy Taylor and Kirill Kulemin came into the pack and Rob Miller replaced Phil Mackenzie on the wing.
The hosts were then dealt a blow before kick-off as James Gaskell and Dwayne Peel pulled up in the warm-up. And with those late changes, the game started slowly. The visiting flanker Sam Jones was prominent with a couple of early bursts through the heart of the home team's rearguard, but the opening 17 minutes was dominated by a series of collapsed scrums.
But finally, after Cipriani had entered the fray for the injured Macleod, the seven-time capped England international kicked the first points after an infringement at a line-out.
Goode then levelled matters with a penalty of his own, before Sale produced their most coherent attack of the half when Cueto, Tom Brady and Andy Forsyth combined. Wasps were now under severe pressure and they eventually succumbed as Cueto powered through some flimsy tackling to touch down. Cipriani converted and also added a penalty late in the half to take Sale into a 13-3 lead at half-time.
Having lost their opening two encounters to Harlequins and Exeter Chiefs, Dai Young's men needed to lift their intensity after a mistake-ridden opening period, but it was Sale who were on the front-foot early in the second half.
Although Cipriani missed a penalty attempt, he atoned for that wayward kick by with a try eight minutes after half-time. The conversion was also scored and that opened up a sizeable lead.
However, to their credit Wasps battled back and reduced the deficit when a maul ended in Johnson crossing the whitewash. Cipriani then gave the hosts a 13-point buffer, but it was Wasps who were now in the ascendancy thanks to their driving game and were awarded a penalty try before Bassett crossed with nine minutes of the encounter remaining.
Goode had the chance to snatch the lead but his effort missed, and Cipriani secured the win when Wasps attempted to go from deep and infringed at the breakdown.
The Wasps' director, Young, was frustrated by their overall performance despite coming back from 20-3 down to within one point with nine minutes to go. He said: "To be honest, I'm hugely disappointed the fightback didn't come earlier. It took us until the 55th minute of the game before we got back into it."
Meanwhile Worcester crashed to their third successive Premiership defeat of the season after a Chris Robshaw-inspired Harlequins coasted home at Sixways.
First-half tries from the England internationals Danny Care and Joe Marler left Worcester with an insurmountable task as Harlequins' England captain, Robshaw, dominated the close-quarter exchanges and repeatedly secured possession for his team.
Nick Evans chipped in with 14 points from the boot and all Worcester could muster was two Ignacio Mieres penalties and a late penalty try that Mieres converted as their 37-13 defeat left them with one point from three starts.
Three yellow cards during the opening 50 minutes did not help Worcester's cause, but they were outclassed by a slick Quins outfit as second-half touchdowns followed for the hooker Rob Buchanan and the full-back Mike Brown before substitute Ben Botica added a penalty in the dying seconds.
Quins were guarenteed bonus point less than halfway through the second period, such was Worcester's defensive frailty, as the Londoners bounced back from last Friday's home defeat against Northampton.
They were never seriously troubled, with Worcester slumping to one of their heaviest home losses in the Premiership ahead of next weekend's Adams Park appointment with Wasps before hosting promoted Newcastle.
Quins, though, are up and running, keeping themselves in touch with the early Premiership pace-setters. There are still plenty of rough edges for the Harlequins rugby director, Conor O'Shea, and his coaching staff to smooth out, yet the Irishman will be largely satisfied with a start to the season that augurs well for bigger challenges that lie ahead. O'Shea hailed a "brilliant" performance by Robshaw. Speculation in some sections of the media this week suggested that the Northampton flanker Tom Wood, who led England on their recent summer tour of Argentina, would keep the captain's job this term, although England head coach Stuart Lancaster has not yet made a decision.
O'Shea said: "I see a lot of speculation about Chris. How anyone could ever not put him on a team sheet is beyond me. He is absolutely magnificent.
"You read about things, and I look at this bloke and I see what he does. I have spoken to Stuart about it [the speculation] this morning, and it's rubbish. Being the England captain is not an easy job but Chris has had a couple of years with that sort of pressure. To come out and play like he did tonight, he was brilliant."
Mieres kicked Worcester into a second-minute lead after he was hit late by Marler, but the visitors soon found their rhythm.
Robshaw secured a couple of early turnovers for his team, and two Evans penalties were the least Quins deserved as they pummelled away deep inside Worcester's 22. The Warriors defence was repeatedly tested, and one technical infringement too many resulted in referee Wayne Barnes sending the Worcester flanker Jake Abbott to the sin-bin.
Despite going a man down, Worcester picked themselves up and a second Mieres penalty put them on level terms at 6-6, but Quins quickly snapped back into action and Care sprinted clear from 40 metres out.
Care's try was a deserved reward for the England international, who proved a constant thorn in Worcester's side with his incisive running, and Evans' conversion took Quins sevens points clear.
Worcester struggled to cope with their opponents when the visitors had ball in hand, and there was a certain inevitability about a second Warriors yellow card – this time for the hooker Ed Shervington – before Marler crashed over from close range to claim Quins' second try.
Evans again converted, and Worcester trooped off 20-6 adrift after playing half the opening 40 minutes with 14 players.
Worcester had to score first in the second half to threaten any kind of a revival, but it took Quins less than three minutes of before they claimed a third try, with Buchanan crossing wide out on an overlap.
Brown added a fourth Quins try after home centre Josh Matavesi received a yellow card, and although Worcester managed a late rally – Quins' replacement prop Mark Lambert was sent to the sin-bin during a spell of Warriors pressure – they ended up being well beaten.
A 68th-minute penalty try gave the Warriors a crumb of comfort from an otherwise difficult evening.
The Worcester rugby director, Dean Ryan, was pulling no punches after the match, following his team's third successive league defeat of the season.
He said: "Let's not try to dress it up, we were well beaten within 50 minutes. We can't cope with that intensity.
"We didn't have an answer to their off-loading game, and when you are under that much stress, something is going to give. We went down to 14 men, and it just gets harder and harder.
"In the second half we showed an awful lot of courage and worked really hard to try to stay in the game, but we were second tonight by some distance.
"That was a top-of-the-table side that found some form tonight. It was as sharp as I have seen them for a while."
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