Munster get Champions Cup campaign back on track with bonus-point win over Gloucester

PÁIRC LIFE: Munster Rugby's Tom Farrell scores his team's fourth try. Pic: Brian Lawless/PA Wire.

MUNSTER 31 GLOUCESTER 3

Munster got their Champions Cup pool campaign back on track on a rainy evening in Cork with a bonus-point victory over Gloucester at Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Saturday.

It was a far from vintage performance as Munster played their first competitive game at the home of Cork GAA in front of more than 36,000 supporters and Clayton McMillan needed a final-quarter, three-try blitz to make life comfortable against a weakened and injury-hit English Prem side.

Yet through the prism of the previous week’s hammering at Bath, this five-try to nil victory was a significant reversal of fortunes at the outset of this Pool 2 campaign and with two matches remaining next month to qualify for the knockout stages, Munster’s destiny is back in their own hands.

A first-half try from centre Dan Kelly, converted by Jack Crowley had given the home side a 7-3 interval lead, and the second half was all Munster as full-back Mike Haley scored just after the interval before replacements Ruadhan Quinn and Tom Farrell, and then captain Tadhg Beirne finished the job to collect the try bonus point that lifts their side off the bottom of the pool table with two played and two to go, at Toulon in France on January 11 before a Thomond Park clash with old foes Castres six days later.

Head coach McMillan had made nine changes from the side he sent out to a 40-14 defeat seven days earlier in their pool opener at Bath and the fresh impetus plus a return home for a first European tie in Cork since December 2002 promised the perfect opportunity for his players to spark their campaign into life.

It did not quite turn out that way, at least in the first 40 minutes. McMillan had led the calls for Munster to give their supporters something worthwhile to cheer about but there was little to excite the 36,208 crowd. Gloucester, who had sent a completely changed XV to Cork following an opening-round, bonus-point home win over Castres six days earlier, had taken the lead with a second-minute penalty from full-back George Barton.

And they did a good job of denying the home side possession for long periods of the first half. It took a break from full-back Mike Haley to energise proceedings, his chip and charge into a defender producing a loose ball which the Munster player was happy to collect on the bounce before advancing into the 22 before he was tackled close to the Gloucester five-metre line.

Haley turned onto his back and passed off the ground into the hands of centre Dan Kelly who also found contact but stretched out a hand to ground the ball over the tryline, Jack Crowley converting for a 7-3 lead on 22 minutes.

That was the way it stayed as the teams went in at half-time, though it should have been a bigger lead. Gloucester prop Jamal Ford-Robinson was yellow carded for a high contact on the side of Crowley’s head while cleaning out a ruck on 32 minutes and the fly-half took the ensuing penalty, only to miss from inside the visitor’s 10-metre line and from a relatively central position.

With half-time approach Munster made an effort to make their numerical advantage count only and after punching holes in the Gloucester defence with some hard carrying from Jack O’Donoghue and Kelly in particular, advanced to in front of the posts, only for Jean Kleyn to be held up over the line in the last play of the first half.

When the teams re-emerged for the second half the expected rain had begun to fall on Leeside and Gloucester had returned to their full complement as Ford-Robinson’s sin-binning came to an end.

Munster did not have to wait long after the restart to get their reward, and it came from some tenacious work from wing Ben O’Connor, the former Cork dual GAA player on his first Champions Cup start.

When Craig Casey chipped into space, drawing out Barton, O’Connor chased and pounced on the full-back, the cavalry following up to force a knock-on by scrum-half Mike Austin.

From the resulting scrum on 49 minutes, Munster’s backs worked the ball from left to right, centre Alex Nankivell’s offload out of the back of his hand freeing up Haley to score in the corner and though Crowley’s touchline conversion attempt was wide, Munster had opened a 12-3 lead.

Munster were in the ascendancy and had the ambition to add to their tally but their execution failed them, Casey throwing a long forward pass to the left wing from inside the 22 and replacement Tom Farrell dropping the ball in front of the Gloucester posts to name but two examples as the game moved into its final quarter.

It was an attack from deep on 67 minutes that lifted the crowd once more, Casey’s break from halfway feeding Haley, with the full-back darting up to the five-metre line and Munster eking a penalty that saw Gloucester replacement Caio James receive a yellow card.

Back-row replacement Quinn scored his side’s third try of the night and a fourth soon followed as Munster applied a boot to the neck of the undermanned visitors.

Farrell atoned for his earlier knock-on to finish an excellent strike play from a five-metre tap penalty, receiving the ball from a no-look reverse pass by centre partner Alex Nankivell on 73 minutes, Crowley converting and then Beirne claimed Munster’s fifth of the night three minutes from time to send the Cork crowd home happy.

MUNSTER: M Haley (JJ Hanrahan, 70); S Daly, D Kelly (T Farrell, 53), A Nankivell, B O’Connor; J Crowley, C Casey (P Patterson, 70); M Milne (J Wycherley, 61), N Scannell (D Barron, 61), M Ala’alatoa (C Bartley, 70); J Kleyn (E Edogbo, 61), T Beirne - captain; T Ahern, J O’Donoghue (R Quinn, 61), G Coombes.

GLOUCESTER: G Barton; J Hathaway, W Knight, M Knight, R Russell; C Atkinson, M Austin (R Price, 63); D Bleuler (C Knight, 50), J Innard (K Freeman Price, 68), J Ford-Robinson (A Fasogbon, 50); C Jordan (H Bokenham, 68), A Clark – captain (D Eite, 63); J Basham (A Fasogbon, 40-h-t, YC scrum rep), H Taylor, J Clement (C James, 63).

Yellow cards: J Ford-Robinson 32-ht, C James 67-77 Replacement not used: J Cotgreave.

Referee: Ben Breakspear (Wales).