McGahan fumes at sloppy Munster

MUNSTER squandered the opportunity to solidify their position at the summit of the Magners League standings as they slumped to a one-point defeat at the hands of Treviso at the Stadio di Monigo yesterday.

While the final scoreline suggested that Tony McGahan’s troops had been unlucky; in truth, the one-point margin of defeat flattered them. After a bright opening, the quality of their play deteriorated horribly as the half wore on and they were fortunate to have only gone in only 6-3 down at the interval, with Treviso fly-half Willem de Waal having outscored his opposite number Paul Warwick by two penalties to one.

Munster’s set-piece, which had malfunctioned in the opening 40 minutes, completely broke down after the interval and Treviso capitalised, sending flanker Gonzalo Padró over for the game’s opening try on 59 minutes.

It was only after the concession of that converted score, which put 13 points between the sides, that Munster finally started to play. They notched two tries in the final quarter, through Doug Howlett and James Coughlan, but a 74th-minute penalty from de Waal ultimately proved decisive.

The defeat could lazily be attributed to the fact that Munster had arrived in Italy without their international contingent, as well as ten other players through injury, but the sluggish nature of the performance was inexcusable.

They had started promisingly, with Warwick opening the scoring with a seventh-minute penalty. The Australian should have extended the province’s advantage soon after but he sliced his second strike on goal to the right of the posts.

Treviso were struggling at this point but their superiority in the set-piece provided them with a platform with which to gain a foothold. Twice in the space of ten minutes de Waal slotted over penalties awarded against Darragh Hurley for bringing down scrums.

Munster were offered the opportunity to reassert some control when Treviso hooker Franco Sbaraglini saw yellow for cynically killing the ball just after the half hour. However, the hosts soaked up what little Munster had to offer from an attacking sense and then proceeded to boss the remaining eight minutes of the half with just 14 men.

It was evident that McGahan need to change things during the interval and it was no surprise that Hurley, who conceded five penalties in total, did not re-emerge for the second period. Wian Du Preez came on in Hurley’s place but his introduction made little difference to Munster’s crumbling set-piece. Indeed, within ten minutes of the restart, du Preez was sitting in the bin alongside Damien Varley, the pair both having been shown yellow cards for collapsing scrums.

Munster defended resolutely with 13 men but finally succumbed to Treviso’s pressure whilst du Preez was still off the field, Padró crashing over in the right corner after a sweeping cross-field attack. De Waal’s wonderful curling kick from the touchline made it 16-3 to Treviso.

The game appeared to be up for Munster but they managed to earn themselves a set-piece penalty on 63 minutes and that enabled Warwick to double his side’s tally.

The visitors then reduced their arrears to just five points with a fine try, Howlett worming his way over the whitewash after some wonderfully instinctive handling from Sam Tuitupou, Donnacha Ryan and Lifeimi Mafi.

However, Warwick failed to add the extras and that, crucially, allowed de Waal to put eight points between the sides with his second long-distance penalty of the game, on 74 minutes.

Munster kept battling, though, and were rewarded when Coughlan crashed over after a succession of forward drives. Warwick converted this time around but Munster had left themselves with too much to do, to the disgust of their head coach.

“I was just very annoyed with our performance,” McGahan fumed. “You can’t come to a place like this and expect to win if you don’t have any platform to play off. I thought we were lethargic in the first half and obviously our set-piece was in trouble for most of the game. They scrummaged really well, they were looking to draw penalties and we were unable to cope with that.”

TREVISO: B Williams; L Nitoglia, E Galon, A Pratichetti, M Sepe; W de Waal, T Botes; M Rizzo, F Sbaraglini, L Cittadini; A Pavanello, C van Zyl; B Vermaak, G Padro’, M Filippucci.

Replacements: E Ceccato, M Muccignat, P di Santo, I Fernandez-Rouyet, E Pavanello, T Benvenuti, B de Jager, A Marcato.

MUNSTER: S Deasy; D Howlett, T Gleeson, L Mafi, S Zebo; P Warwick, D Williams; D Hurley, D Varley, S Archer; I Nagle, D Foley; B Holland, T O'Donnell, J Coughlan. Replacements: M Sherry, W du Preez, P Borlase, M O'Driscoll, D Ryan, C Sheridan, S Tuitupou, D Hurley.

Referee: James Jones (WRU)