Munster left with Bordeaux regrets as focus turns to URC tilt
12 April 2025; Peter O'Mahony of Munster with his son Theo and wife Jessica, and teammate Stephen Archer with his son Alex after the Investec Champions Cup quarter-final match at Stade Chaban-Delmas in Bordeaux. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
They may have exited the Champions Cup with heads held high after going toe to toe with one of the competition’s strongest teams, yet Munster left Bordeaux still wondering.
The focus has already turned to a push for the URC play-offs, which starts this Saturday with the visit of the Bulls to Thomond Park but there will be something continuing to gnaw at the back of the minds of coaches and players following this high-scoring and utterly entertaining quarter-final at Stade Chaban-Delmas.
Bordeaux-Begles were at their scintillating best and, at times in the second half, Munster matched them for pace, power and creativity in a 10-try thriller that needed a terrific score on 67 minutes from Six Nations player of the tournament Louis Bielle-Biarrey to settle the nerves of home supporters on a raucous afternoon in south-west France.
If only Munster could have back those first 50 minutes, though. For as brilliant as Bordeaux were in leaping out to a 29-3 lead inside the opening 33 minutes, with tries from Damien Penaud, Maxime Lucu, Pete Samu and 19-year-old full-back Jon Echegaray, the visitors should have made it a much more even contest. Six lost lineouts in the opening half alone took a terrible toll as prime attacking platforms were literally thrown away while handling errors were just as frustrating.
Seven days on from the heroics of Stade Marcel-Delfandre, when Munster had slugged it out with La Rochelle in a 25-24 Round of 16 nailbiter to claim the only away win in eight knockout ties, the concern had been whether there was enough left in the tank, mentally and physically, to get up for an even greater challenge against the Top 14 challengers and Champions Cup top seeds.
Unfortunately for the more than 2,000 travelling supporters, a wonderful turnout at short notice for a second trip to France in a week, what their heroes supplied in terms of spirit, character and fight was not matched by accuracy and execution.
“Genuinely we thought it might be around mental energy and emotionally being at the right pitch,” interim head coach Ian Costello said. “No, it didn’t feel like that at all.
“It genuinely felt like we just didn’t execute well enough in two areas of our game.
“You can probably get away with one, put two together and we struggled. And then we needed a big start to the second half and we didn’t get it. We left it a little bit too late.”
Alex Nankivell, his name cleared following a red card for a clearout on Connacht’s Cian Prendergast a fortnight earlier, had powered over from short range off a sharp Craig Casey pass as the forwards finally managed to deliver a platform off lineout in first-half added time. Jack Crowley’s conversion made it 29-10 at the break and a deficit the coaching staff felt was well within their team’s capabilities.
It required a strong start to the second half, only for the lineout once again to malfunction and a forward pass off a maul to equally frustrate in the opening minutes after the restart.
When Munster did get into their groove, they were as irresistible with ball in hand as their hosts. Nankivell and midfield partner Tom Farrell started punching holes in a Bordeaux line missing lock Cyril Cazeux to the first of two yellow cards after half-time, and loanee left wing Andrew Smith showcased his Sevens prowess with a rapid chase of his own kick to outpace Echegaray to score on 50 minutes, At 29-15 Munster were back in the game but then came another wobble, Matthieu Jalibert slotting a penalty having missed an earlier effort on 49 minutes, followed by a yellow card for the newly-arrived Tom Ahern. Bordeaux scored a maul try from there through hooker Maxime Lamothe with Jalibert adding a penalty to bring up 40 points for the home side on 66 minutes.
Again there was a fightback, a linebreak from Sean O’Brien causing problems for Bordeaux to the extent that Echegaray tarnished his afternoon with a deliberate knock-on to deny the replacement Munster back a pass to Farrell, referee Nika Amashukeli issuing another yellow card, as the otherwise impressive French Under-20 was sent to the sin bin.
Another strong finish from Smith, this time popping up on the other wing for his third try in two European games was undermined by Another yellow card, this time to Alex Kendellen inside a minute of his arrival off the bench made it 14-a-side and Munster made the best of it, a clever Crowley grubber kick to the corner finding Smith on his opposite wing, and there was added hope of more heroics when Cazeaux was sent off for a second time on 74 minutes for a high hit on Nankivell.
Eleven points down at 40-29 with six minutes to go and with Bordeaux down to 13 men for another couple of minutes, Munster supporters dared to believe but the home side found another gear once more. A turnover from a counter-ruck in midfield set in train some power carries, offloads and a final pass from Lucu for Bielle-Biarrey to secure their first Champions Cup semi-final appearance.
Munster had not been able to back up their victory in La Rochelle but Costello could find some positives to take from the last few weeks into the URC regular-season run-in.
“I’d go back to that Connacht game, we were under an awful lot of pressure. It was one we had to win for our URC season or we wouldn’t be in this competition next year, so the energy, the vibe, the feeling in the camp is really positive.
“The coaches and the staff have done a really good job, especially in the last month and the players have been outstanding. Today was about being fresh. The danger was emotionally we wouldn’t reach the same levels. Today wasn’t about emotion. Today was about accuracy and we didn’t execute.
“That’s going to be the regret piece because I thought we had a really, really good week. We felt we had a good plan. Unfortunately we weren’t accurate enough to execute.”
: J Echegaray; D Penaud, Y Moefana, R Janse van Rensburg (P Uberti, 54), L Bielle-Biarrey; M Jalibert (Y Lesgourgues, 67), M Lucu – captain; J Poirot (C Sa, 63), M Lamothe (M Perchaud, 54), B Tameifuna (S Falatea, 43); C Cazeaux, A Coleman (P Bochaton, 57); M Diaby (M Gazotti, 47), G Petti, P Samu (B Vergnes-Taillefer, 60).
Yellow card: C Cazeaux 47-57 & 74
: T Abrahams; C Nash (S O’Brien, 57), T Farrell, A Nankivell, A Smith; J Crowley, C Casey (C Murray, 63); J Wycherley (M Donnelly, 70), D Barron (N Scannell, 38), O Jager (S Archer, 49); J Kleyn (F Wycherley, 57), T Beirne - captain; P O’Mahony (T Ahern, 49), J Hodnett , G Coombes (A Kendellen, 60).
Yellow card: T Ahern 55-65, A Kendellen 63-73
: Nika Amashukeli (Georgia)
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