We owe Sale one from the game down there in November, and you couldnt fault our attack that day, but what we did do was let them score five tries, so we know where we let ourselves down, said Peel, who packs down at loose head prop.
Weve been doing some hard defensive work in training and really moving on in that area, which I think showed up in the Leeds game on Monday, and were getting better all the time.
What we cant do is concentrate too much on defence because we then stop playing attacking rugby ourselves, and maybe that happened at Saracens in the Powergen Cup to an extent, so its all about getting the right balance.
With the Falcons topping Pool 5 in the Heineken Cup and on the rise in the Zurich Premiership Peel said: Weve got massive confidence, and we just have to keep the winning habit going.
We were obviously disappointed with the Saracens game, and even going as far back as the away match at London Irish in mid November, we didnt see it through, and had we done that we could be looking at a long unbeaten run over the last couple of months.
After some tight games in recent weeks, Peel believes that Sundays repeat encounter of Aprils Powergen Cup final could well be a thriller for what promises to be an encouraging sell-out crowd, with only under a thousand standing tickets remaining.
If teams come out and stop us playing by committing penalties, then we dont mind kicking them over, as we did at Leeds last week, he said.
But we dont expect that from Sale this weekend because, like us, they want to play rugby the way it should be played. They dont come out with the sole intention of killing the game, and it usually makes for an entertaining match, which is what most supporters would want.
I couldnt believe the support down at Leeds. It was awesome, like one of the Super League games down there, but the volume of the fans cheering for Newcastle was fantastic. Hopefully we can use a big home support to our favour this weekend as well.
