Manning inspires Munster to victory

Munster 36 Connacht 17

However, there is no doubt that they were flattered by the 36-17 scoreline which paid scant credit to a Connacht side that battled gamely all the way and will leave their coach Michael Bradley wondering if their luck will ever change. They remain rooted to the bottom of the table, whereas the five points stretch Munster’s lead at the head of the table to that amount ahead of Edinburgh.

The game proved a highly successful return to action by Paul O’Connell and his well being leaves Bradley’s counterpart Declan Kidney with a selection headache before Saturday’s crunch clash with Leinster at the RDS.

He has other issues to deal with as well if he is to mastermind a win over a side that showed its mettle by winning in front of a full house at Ravenhill on Monday night. But there were plus points as well, most notably the performance of Jeremy Manning at out-half.

Kidney has great belief in the potential of the New Zealand-born UCC student and it was justified on this occasion, while half-back partner Tomas O’Leary also prospered.

Munster set an attacking note from the outset and for a time looked extremely impressive. The pressure had to tell and did when, after good work by Barry Murphy, Denis Leamy took an inside pass to crash over after eight minutes.

Manning struck an upright with the attempted conversion but there was further good news for Munster when O’Connell soared to claim the restart and leapt to his feet unscathed, having been unceremoniously dumped by the Connacht forwards. He continued in similarly positive vein, scored a vital try, and looked none the worse for his three-month injury lay-off when finally retiring after 69 minutes.

Manning stretched Munster’s lead with a penalty from the halfway line, and already you wondered if there could be a way back for a Connacht side that included only John Muldoon and Andrew Farley of the pack that had performed so well in the European Challenge Cup defeat of Worcester a fortnight previously. Indeed, coach Michael Bradley made 10 changes from the side that performed so well on that occasion, and so was taking a big risk when pitting his men against Munster in the cauldron that Thomond Park invariably becomes.

To their credit, though, his side gave the answer in the best way possible, mauling their way over the Munster line in the 20th minute after a line-out take by John Muldoon, with hooker Joe Merrigan emerging from the mass of bodies with the ball and credited with a try that Paul Warwick converted.

As the half progressed, familiar shortcomings in the Munster attacking patterns emerged, and the Connacht defence was coping comfortably.

Manning knocked over a couple of penalties to stretch the lead to 14-7 and looked comfortable in his out-half role but otherwise Munster were unable to make any further impression before half-time. It was a scoreline that should have been far more convincing after 40 minutes of rugby that promised a lot more than it achieved.

The story became a whole lot worse for Munster six minutes into the second half when Connacht’s powerful maul sucked in several defenders and made it relatively easy for Warwick to scamper over at the posts for a well-taken try.

He converted himself to level the scoring at 14-14.

A crafty kick through by O’Leary brought play to the Connacht line where O’Connell, hugely assisted by his “lifter” John Hayes, stole Merrigan’s throw, and with the help of his pack surged over the line for a try, converted by Manning.

Man-of-the-match Manning tapped over a penalty before departing.

There followed an inspired run by O’Leary, by now operating on the right wing, that led to a try on the other side of the park by Anthony Horgan after a lovely looping pass by Gary Connolly and O’Gara added the points to put the match out of reach for Bradley’s men.

Now the Munstermen went in search of the bonus and it duly came from Pucciarello’s try in the right hand corner in the third minute of stoppage time. The holiday crowd went home frozen with the cold but a lot happier than earlier seemed likely.

MUNSTER: S. Payne; A. Pitout, B. Murphy, G. Connolly, A. Horgan; J. Manning, T. O’Leary; F. Pucciarello, D. Fogarty, J. Hayes, T. Hogan, P. O’Connell capt, D. O’Callaghan, D. Leamy, S. Keogh. Replacements: J. Flannery for Fogarty 16 mins; P. Stringer for Pitout 52; M. Horan for Hayes 60; R. O’Gara for Manning 67; A. Foley for Keogh 67; M. O’Driscoll for O’Connell 69.

CONNACHT: D. Slemen; M. Mostyn, A. Mailei, G. Williams, C. McPhillips; P. Warwick, T. Tierney; D. McFarland, J. Merrigan, A. Clarke, D. Gannon, A. Farley capt, M. Swift, B. O’Connor, J. Muldoon. Replacements, C. Keane for Tierney 46 mins; J. Fogarty for Merrigan, S. Knoop for Clarke and R. Hogan for McFarland all 59; T. Robinson for Warwick 74.

Referee: A. Rolland (Leinster).