League bid goes up in smoke as Munster fail to slay Dragons
Munster were out of sorts, troubled up front and desperately lacking focus behind the scrum. The display does not auger well for their forthcoming Heineken Cup clash against arch-rivals Leinster.
Exacting revenge for three consecutive defeats this season, the Dragons won more convincingly than the score line suggests and could have added at least two more tries.
Munster captain Anthony Foley held his hands up and admitted: “We were beaten by a better side on the night. We fell off a couple of tackles in the first half and conceded tries, while they stood up and made the hits.”
Foley conceded that the Celtic League challenge was now out of Munster’s hands. “We just have to go from here, keep winning, and hope that other sides do us some favours. We have no excuses for what was a below par performance; we prepared well, our confidence was high coming from the Perpignan match, but we didn’t come over here thinking it would be easy.
“We had played the Dragons three times up to this, and none of the games were easy. Still, it’s very disappointing, and now we have to get ourselves back together for next week’s game with Edinburgh and then Leinster in two week’s time. That’s the challenge we face now.”
For a change, Munster enjoyed a brilliant start. Inside a minute they went seven points up, with Trevor Halstead powering over for a try that was created by his early break and further surges from Paul O’Connell and Jeremy Manning. Ronan O’Gara’s deputy kicked the additional points and also knocked over a penalty after the Dragons hit back with a Jamie Forster try.
But the drama was never far off in this first half, and Manning departed the scene on a stretcher after 28 minutes after being knocked out cold, to be replaced by Paul Burke. The Dragons, who had just been awarded a penalty, launched a furious assault, won a penalty, line out, scrum and Nathan Brew was sent in for a try when they spread it wide.
Craig Warlow converted to make it 12-10 to the home side. Munster’s last game against the Dragons ended in a 10-8 victory; this first half was just as traumatic, even if they did look potentially the better side with John Kelly wearing number 14 in the centre and Tomas O’Leary at number 13 on the wing.
It didn’t matter who was in the middle in injury time when Nathan Brew came from his wing to split though the Munster the defence and help create a try for Gareth Wyatt, with Ceri Sweeney and Aled Thomas the link men. That was deep into first half injury time, and Munster had to be happy with that with that seven-point deficit, despite a missed penalty opportunity from Burke in the last seconds.
The Dragons started the second half at 100mph, but it was Munster who scored first when Federico Puciariello was sent in for a seventh minute try that Burke converted to level the scores.
Munster fell behind again to a Warlow penalty, after 53 minutes, and were lucky not to lose more ground when Wyatt intercepted a long pass from Burke to Ian Dowling.
Just afterwards, the home crowd went berserk and chanted “cheat, cheat, cheat” when Scottish referee Peter Allan awarded a penalty to Munster in a ruck that looked like leading to a turnover to the Dragons. They had a point. And it got worse for Munster when they tried to run out of defence, only to concede a penalty in another ruck. Warlow kicked another penalty that went in off the upright, to establish a 23-17 lead.
Munster brought in Mike Mullins for Ian Dowling and switched Kelly to the wing as the rain descended. It hardly helped that Munster, after winning a penalty and a subsequent line out, knocked on. They conceded a scrum, won possession back but then lost another line out on their own throw.
Wyatt was back on song after 70 minutes when he fastened onto his own chip ahead. He was unlucky to knock on with the line as his mercy as Munster hung on to a slim hope of turning this game around. Wyatt missed another golden opportunity when he failed to catch Warlow’s kick to the corner.
Munster breathed again, but it wasn’t easy breathing. In those last minutes, their defence was all over the place; the Dragons managed to win a Munster line out throw and in fact, everything that could go wrong for Munster, did go wrong.
: A. Thomas, G. Wyatt, H. Luscombe, C. Sweeney, N. Brew, c. Warlow, G. Baber, A. Black, S. Jones, R. Thomas, I. Gough, L. Charteris, J. Ringer, M. Owen, J. Forster (captain). Replacements. J. Bryant for Luscombe (58, injured),
: S. Payne, J. Kelly, T. O’Leary, T. Halstead, I. Dowling, J. Manning, P. Stringer, F. Pucciariello, J. Flannery, J. Hayes, D. O’Callaghan, P. O’Connell, M. O’Driscoll, A. Foley (captain), D. Wallace. Replacements. P. Burke for Manning (28, injured), M. Mullins for Dowling (70), F. Roche for Pucciariello (83)
: P. Allan (Scotland).
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