Magic moments missing as Munster come up short
Sixteen points down at half time, they produced a stirring second-half comeback that might have produced the desired result. In the end, after looking set for devastation at the break, it all came down to simple errors at the Stade Anoeta in San Sebastian - the concession of a silly first-half try and the failure to keep the phases going long enough to put a decidedly nervous Biarritz side away.
This was the best quarter-final of the Heineken Cup weekend, certainly the most tightly contested, but Munster still came up short. The lack of flair in midfield was all too obvious and half-backs Peter Stringer and Paul Burke failed to make best use of the options available to them at crucial stages.
Nobody played that badly but few, apart from Marcus Horan and David Wallace, truly illuminated this rugged contest.
Serge Betson won the Man of the Match award but Horan or Wallace deserved it as much.
Nobody could fault the Munster pack despite the loss of three of their own line-outs in the second half. They gave it everything, with Horan, Wallace, Anthony Foley, Paul O’Callaghan and Donncha O’Callaghan leading from the front.
The regret will be that, without Ronan O’Gara, Christian Cullen and Brian Lima, there was no game-breaker despite the best efforts of Shaun Payne, John Kelly and Anthony Horgan. They stood out in the Munster back division.
Coach Alan Gaffney put it all down to errors. “We had opportunities to win the game, we had opportunities to stay in the hunt during the first 40 minutes, but let them pull away. In the second half we were much better, I didn’t have to say too much at half-time, didn’t have to tell them what to do or what they needed to do.
“We got back into the match, tried to turn it around and I really felt we were still in with a shout until the last five minutes. But we needed one more score, any type of score to put us within reach.”
For the first 30 minutes Munster were starved of possession. When they did have it, it was deep inside their own territory and there was an air of panic about the way they tried to extricate themselves from the dilemma.
All the good football, the clever football, was played by Biarritz, who opened a 13 points lead with consummate ease, albeit with a touch of good fortune in the opening try. Still, there was no doubt the lead was fully deserved.
Dimitri Yachvilli kicked Biarritz ahead in the 12th minute and then converted the try from Martin Gaitan.
The score came about when Stringer’s poor pass to John Kelly went to ground, Philippe Badabe got a boot to the ball and then Burke, back to rescue, was swallowed up. Biarritz won the ruck and Gaitan raced away.
Yachvili added a penalty to make it 13-0 and Munster, despite a lot of huffing and puffing, failed to get back into the match.
They attacked with venom but the only route forward was through the pack. Stringer took a couple of wrong options by failing to use the blind side and that, naturally, played into Biarritz hands.
It looked really an uphill struggle, and it got worse when Yachvilli kicked his third penalty in injury-time.
If Biarritz had the best of the first half, Munster came out fighting in the second. A superb effort from Payne ended when Thomas Lievremont knocked him down short of the line but, from the subsequent scrum, Wallace got in for the try that Burke converted.
Munster’s first half failings then came back to haunt them, as they failed to take a couple of scoring opportunities.
Mike Mullins nearly intercepted, but knocked-on. Horan had one superb second-half run out of defence, made 50 metres but ignored Mullins on his right.
These were opportunities missed and Yachvili again punished Munster with a fourth penalty to push the lead out to 19-7 midway through the second half.
Burke cut the gap back with a 66th minute penalty but Munster failed to apply the type of pressure needed to turn the tide. Sure, they tried gamely and they did have a couple of opportunities when they made the initial break and got through the gain line only to fail with the finishing touches.
It was brave stuff, a much better second-half performance than the first but, overall, just not good enough to edge their way into a sixth successive Heineken Cup semi-final.
: N. Brusque, P. Bidabe, M. Gaitan, D. Traille, J. Marlu, J. Peyrelongue, D. Yachvili, P. Balan, B. August, D. Avril, J. Thion, O. Olibeau, S. Betsen, T. Lievremont (captain), I. Harinordoquay.
. B. Lecouls for Petru (57), D. Couzinet for Olibeau (68)
: S. Payne, J. Kelly, M. Mullins, R. Henderson, A. Horgan, P. Burke, P. Stringer, M. Horan, F. Sheahan, J. Hayes, D. O’Callaghan, P. O’Connell, A. Quinlan, A. Foley (captain), D. Wallace.
. J. Holland for Burke (73), J. Williams for Quinlan (74), P. Devlin for Mullins (82).
: C. White (England).
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