The Well narrowly beaten by Young Munster

Young Munster 28 Sunday’s Well 26

This was exactly the kind of game Munsters would have lost last season when they suffered the ignominy of relegation, having been top-four just one year previously. Wind-assisted in the first half, by the 26th minute they had built up a comfortable 14-6 lead, including a 70m intercept try by late wing replacement Alan Brosnan.

Scrum-half Mike Prendergast was orchestrating things well, and Munsters looked set to build on that lead, when the malaise of last season set in. From a position where they looked comfortably the better side, they conceded the initiative to a determined Well fifteen.

Two fine strikes into the wind by the visitors scrum-half Eddie Hogan-O'Connell, then the hammer just before the interval; Munsters in good attacking position, going forward with purpose, the ball spun wide, pass intercepted by their own number 8 Ross Landman while going the wrong way, returning from an offside position ball lost.

Less than a minute later, after a quick-thinking penalty, any one of a three-man overlap could have touched down for The Well, centre Sean Keenan given the honour. Simple conversion, from 14-3 Munsters were suddenly looking at 16-14, a two-point deficit, now facing into the wind.

But this is a very different Young Munster team to last year's model. Two converted second-half tries, the first from their very impressive outside-centre Clem Casey (rare speed), the second by towering second-row Richie Philpott sealed this one, despite the best efforts of Declan Coppinger and his pack for The Well.

The Cork side did come back, and a try from centre Cronan Healy closed the scoring.

"Last year, this was the type of game we'd have lost", O'Connell admitted. "Instead of putting teams away when we had the chance, it was the opposite, we lost a lot of games we should have won, lost a lot of games by two or three points in the dying minutes.

"We were a bit like the Irish team of old, played great stuff for sixty minutes, then lost it towards the end. To be honest, I think we started panicking too early about relegation; having had such a good season the year before, top four, when the early results weren't going our way we began to panic a bit and it affected us.

"Three games in a row where we were winning going into the last ten minutes we ended up losing all three. If we had won those, we'd have stayed up. We under performed, but I don't think we were giving any less. We're re-building now this year, and hopefully we'll come straight back up. I don't think we played very well today, it wasn't pretty, but we stuck at it and managed to eke out a win".

Better than eking out a loss, though new Director of Rugby Rowly Williams wasn't totally pleased.

"We had to grind that one out, much closer than I would have liked I don't think we'll play that poorly again during the course of the season. But it bodes well for the future that a team that young can show that much character so early in the season, high hopes for the rest of the year".