Never say die Munster rise above French flair

FAR from a classic, but the game was laced with some magnificent rugby and, in the end, few Toulouse supporters could argue that their side deserved to depart from the Millennium Stadium with a fourth Heineken Cup.

The 13th Cup final had hardly started when Ronan O’Gara’s midweek warning that the pitch would be unusually wet and slippery because of the closure of the roof rang true. Ian Dowling, Denis Hurley, Doug Howlett and O’Gara himself were among those to lose their feet in the most frenetic and fiercely contested opening 20 minutes.

It didn’t help that Toulouse were dominating the possession stakes and Munster would have been relieved to find themselves only three points behind, a dropped goal by Jean-Baptiste Elissalde on eight minutes, as the game entered its second quarter. However, as always seems to be the case with this team, they gradually got to grips with the situation and Doug Howlett, Lifeimi Mafi and Rua Tipoki were seen in all their pomp.

After 29 minutes came the incident that could well have decided the outcome. Munster laid siege to the Toulouse line and Denis Leamy leapfrogged a whole host of players and reached for the line. It looked like he had made a fair touchdown but after much deliberation the TMO Derek Bevan ruled that he had lost the ball forward.

And it was then that the mettle of this much-criticised Munster scrum was graphically illustrated. They pushed the French off their own ball and earned the put-in. “The game’s turning point,” admitted Toulouse coach Guy Noves.

A quick heel and how fitting it was that Leamy, with the help of several colleagues, was the man who battered his way over. This time referee Nigel Owens gave the decision off his own bat.

O’Gara tapped over the conversion and the first rendition of The Fields of Athenry rang out over this amazing stadium. It got another lash when the nerveless O’Gara bisected the posts from 35 metres. 10-3 to Munster and the whole place had been electrified. Half-time loomed but in the 41st minute Alan Quinlan played the ball from an offside position and this time Jean-Baptiste Elissalde kicked the three points from almost halfway. Even so, 20 minutes earlier, Munster fans would have taken your hand off if you had offered them a 10-6 half-time lead.

Scoring first in the second half seemed all important, but the circumstances in which the advantage fell to Munster was nothing short of bizarre. Fabien Pelous, the talismanic Toulouse captain and one of the game’s most experienced and decorated players, gave Alan Quinlan a fairly innocuous kick in the backside, claiming it was retaliation for having been stamped on the foot by the Munster man.

It was spotted by touch judge Nigel Whitehouse, who advised referee Nigel Owens to award Munster a penalty and dispatch Pelous to the bin.

Given that a forward pass from Rua Tipoki to Doug Howlett a few moments previously had deprived Munster of a spectacular try, Munster fans and the few neutrals in the crowd of 74,417 would have felt this was only justice. O’Gara did the necessary and at 13-6 you might have imagined that Munster had some badly-needed breathing space. Instead, a piece of Cedric Heymans magic opened up their defence for the only time in the game and led to a terrific try by Yves Donguy.

Elissalde added the points and Munster had it all to do once again. But doubt their fortitude at your peril and from there to the finish they were comfortably the better side. Oddly they did lose the 10-minute spell (7-3) when Pelous was absent, but that, or nothing else, seemed to worry them.

Indeed, the hapless Pelous had hardly returned to the fray when he again earned the wrath of the referee. Backchat cost his team 10 metres and made O’Gara’s winning penalty a virtual sitter — if anything could be described as such in the circumstances.

Munster overdid the playing down of the clock and were pinged on three occasions for not releasing. But they had the measure of the French for all that and had Lifeimi Mafi held on to a possible scoring pass in the 74th minute, it would really have put the gloss on a very brave and often very skilful performance.

MUNSTER: D Hurley; D Howlett, L Mafi, R Tipoki, I Dowling; R O’Gara, T O’Leary; M Horan, J Flannery, J Hayes, D O’Callaghan, P O’Connell (capt), A Quinlan, D Wallace, D Leamy.

Replacements: T. Buckley and M. O’Driscoll for Horan and O’Connell, both temporary (63-66) and (57-60).

TOULOUSE: C Heymans; M Medard, M Kunavore, Y Jauzion, Y Donguy; J Elissalde, B Kelleher; D Human, W Servat, S Perugini, F Pelous (capt), P Albacete, J Bouilhou, T Dusautoir, S Sowerby.

Replacements: Y. Nyanga for Dusautoir (38); J.B. Poux for Perugini (55); R. Millo-Chluski for Albacete (61); G. Lamboley for Bouilhou (61).

Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales).