Munster youngsters are mauled by Tigers

Leicester Tigers 50 Munster 19

Having turned Northampton over in a welter of excitement at Thomond Park a week before, the Munster youngsters simply ran out of steam.

Coach Declan Kidney admitted it was a hard day at the office.

“A more experienced team punished us for almost all of the mistakes we made. It’s a tough venue to play in and we shipped a lot of points.

“But just as the guys enjoyed the win over Northampton, they’ve got to get over this and learn from it,” he added.

Munster play Borders next week and it’s likely that Marcus Horan, Frankie Sheahan, Denis Leamy, Alan Quinlan, David Wallace, Peter Stringer and Anthony Horgan, though injured, will be available.

In the meantime, Kidney will take stock of what happened in the last couple of weeks. He cannot be totally displeased with those events, despite last night’s top-heavy score-line, because there were some excellent individual performances.

It was intense stuff from the start. Munster took the lead with a penalty from Paul Burke. Andy Goode replied but Burke responded, even though there was a touch of fortune about the award.

Leicester appeared to have taken the benefit of an intercept from winger Alesana Tuilagi, only to be called back for offside. However, Goode scored his second midway through the half to level the scores at six points apiece.

But, while Burke gave Munster the lead again after 29 minutes, the Tigers struck back when captain Daryl Gibson scored a magnificent try.

Two minutes from the break, Leicester stretched the lead to 14-9 with another penalty from Goode. It got worse when Tuilagi scorched in at the corner in injury time and Goode converted to push the score to 21-9.

Those last minutes of the opening half were not good for Munster. Leicester attacked at scrum time, turned over possession and, from the subsequent set piece, scored.

Two minutes into the second half, Goode added a penalty and Leicester were out of sight, although Burke did peg the deficit back with a penalty after seven minutes. But it didn’t get any better. Sam Vesty grabbed a try in 52 minutes, Leicester were awarded a penalty try five minutes later that Goode converted and he also added the points to a further try from Ephraim Taukafa, who had only been on the pitch for seconds.

That made it 43-12 to Leicester, who swept further ahead when Leo Cullen made it possible to break the half century with a try at the posts. Goode had no difficulty converting.

Munster were finally awarded a penalty try that Jeremy Manning, who replaced Paul Burke, converted.

A few of the Munster raw recruits will certainly have grown up in this big, bad world of professional rugby.

You sense that Kidney would not have it any other way. Harsh lessons must be learned before glory can follow.

LEICESTER: S Vesty, A Tuilagi, D Hipkiss, D Gibson (captain), T Varndell, A Goode, H Ellis, M Holford, G Chuter, A Moreno, J Hamilton, L Cullen, B Deacon, W Johnson, S Jennings.

Replacements: L Lloyd for Hipkiss (49), M Corry for Deacon, B Kay for Hamilton (both 51), L Abraham for Jennings (59), E Taukafa for Chuter (62) G Rowntree for Holford (63).

MUNSTER: B Martin, P Devlin, J Kelly, R Henderson, M Lawlor, P Burke, F Murphy, F Roche, J Flannery, F Puccariello, T Hogan, M O’Driscoll, J O’Sullivan, S Keogh (captain), J O’Connor.

Replacements: T Halstead for Henderson (40), A Foley for O’Connor, J Manning for Burke (both 53), I Dowling for Martin (56), B Tuohy for Devlin, D Fogarty for Flannery (both 63), M Prendergast for Murphy (68).

Referee: R Maybank (England).

Ulster 42 Rotherham Titans 15

DAVID HUMPHREYS made his first appearance of the season for Ulster as a second half replacement, and showed he still has an insatiable appetite for the game.

The Ireland fly-half scored one scorching try, made two others and kicked three penalties before limping off with a leg injury after 27 minutes of duty.

ULSTER: B Cunningham; J Topping, J Bell, P Steinmetz, S Young; P Wallace, R Spee; B Young, R Best, D Fitzpatrick, R Caldwell, J Harrison, N Best, N McMillan, C Feather.

Replacements: (all used) N Brady, J Fitzpatrick, R Frost, O Hennessey, P Marshall, A Maxwell, A Trimble, H Head, S Stewart, D Humphreys, K Maggs, C Henry.

Scorers: T: N Best, McMillan 2, Trimble, Humphreys, Frost; C: Steinmetz 2, Humphreys 3, Wallace.

ROTHERHAM: E Claasens; D Stretlle, L Blackett, WP Strauss, A Carter, M Whitehead, J Bedford; J Carey, N Hanna, A Pienaar, R Walton, L McGowan, H Fourie, N Cochrane, S Donald.

Replacements: (all used) A Hopcroft, J Golding, G McComb, B Wade, M Kirkwood, G Mitchell, T Allen.

Scorers: T: Fourie, McGowan; C: Whitehead; P: Whitehead.

Referee: David Keane (LBAR).