Livewire Leamy lights up Thomond

SHAUN PAYNE, Trevor Halstead and Federico Pucciarello have huge roles to play, but the European champions could never be the same or mean the same to their massive band of supporters without a strong core of home-grown players.

That point was beautifully made at Thomond Park on Saturday when Denis Leamy and Alan Quinlan, two proud sons of Tipperary, scored three of the four tries against Cardiff Blues, Limerick’s Barry Murphy got the fourth and Cork’s Peter Stringer played a central role in just about everything good that happened in a far from perfect Munster performance.

Leamy’s two early tries should have led to greater things but it certainly wasn’t the Cashel man’s fault Munster had to wait until the eighth minute of injury-time to clinch the bonus point. His strength and footballing skill have helped make him one of the world’s finest players.