Fans relieved as Munster finally lift the gloom

If a novelist came up with it, you’d say the scene was overcooked.

As Munster warmed up last night in Musgrave Park for their Pro12 game with Edinburgh, the sun threw lengthy shadows across the field, but rolling in over Mahon was a heavy cloud and the promise of plenty of rain. Forbidding, overcast, gloomy.

An entire season, encapsulated in a single scene? Could we invent a breeze from the south to clear the clouds? Please: less is more when it comes to symbolism.

Yesterday came at the end of a turbulent week, with Anthony Foley’s wintry welcome for new director of rugby Rassie Erasmus getting plenty of exposure; as a consequence the news cycle wasn’t kind to Foley, with terms like end of the road being used about his coaching ticket.

Add in the fact that so much was riding on last night’s encounter in terms of European qualification, and you’d have been forgiven for perceiving a brittle edge to the anticipation in last night’s crowd in the Ballyphehane venue.

For the new man, presuming Erasmus was able to tune his set-top box to TG4 and providing his Gaeilge is up to scratch, what would he have discovered from last night’s fare?

The benefits of an early try, for one thing. With a season like Munster’s, the temptation is to force the play a little — not on the field of play, but in the press box, where every slight hesitation or under-cooked kick is interpreted as a signifier of intolerable pressure, a sure indication of eventual collapse.

Not so much last night. Munster absorbed some early pressure before a Johnny Holland kick on seven minutes to lift the siege caused uncertainty in the Edinburgh defence; half a dozen passes later and Rory Scannell was touching down in the corner.

It’s tempting to suggest the entire attendance, save a few kilted gents in the stand, exhaled in relief, but not quite. For an idea of what Erasmus has waiting in his in-tray labelled ‘urgent’, take Jason Tovey’s try on 18 minutes, with the Edinburgh out-half enjoying an unhindered voyage to the try-line.

(Perhaps this was an aesthetic response to the horror show which was the Edinburgh jerseys. They looked like the clothes made from curtains Maria put on the Von Trapp kids in The Sound of Music. If she couldn’t sew. And was colour-blind. And cruel.) Two tries, by Simon Zebo and Andrew Conway, put the home side back in the driving seat, but 20-13 was an unemphatic half-time lead.

The tries dried up in the second half — for quite a while the only highlight was the arrival of the splendidly named Edinburgh replacement Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, simultaneously improving the visitors’ backline and smashing the canard that only Cork people have double-barrelled names.

Munster had no such entertainment for much of the second period: losing line-outs, knocking the ball on, wayward restarts. Now the nervousness was real.

The home side saw Edinburgh edge within four points, then one, moving into the fourth quarter, and the sense of fear began truly to gnaw. The circumstances seemed to be aligning for a late, late Edinburgh winner, particularly when Munster battered the opposition line with four minutes left and came up short . . . only for Francis Saili to intervene and make it safe with a try under the sticks.

An eight-point margin seemed a little excessive after the tension of that second half, but the crowds spilling out onto TramoreRoad weren’t complaining. They’d been through the wringer; they were entitled to a little relief with the Bank Holiday beckoning.

And the weather? After Conway’s first-half try a rainbow appeared. Seriously. We should have known all along.

Well, it was an evening for breakthroughs, after all.