CONNACHT 10
MUNSTER 8
Garry Doyle reports
IT WAS A victory for ambition. Connacht played with some, Munster didn’t. Johann van Graan’s side were poor, no better than that. Yes, there is a ready-made excuse – a limited number of games over the last few months leading to rustiness – but still. They’ve good players. They’re a good team. They didn’t play like one.
Connacht did. In terms of a spectacle, this was average. In terms of drama, it was tense. We had four yellow cards. We had one period just before half-time when the game was really on the line. Munster were leading by five points and were camped in the Connacht 22 for seven, long minutes.
Had they scored then, well perhaps Connacht could have fought back but you wouldn’t have backed them to. But Munster didn’t score. Connacht defended for their lives – the magnificent Cian Prendergast and Jarrad Butler getting through some Trojan work – and they got to half-time with just a five-point deficit.
That turned into a two-point lead midway through the second half when Bundee Aki bundled across the line after joining a Connacht maul. Conor Fitzgerald’s subsequent conversion proved to be priceless.
And from there on, they controlled the game. In fact, they should have won by more – twice turning down kickable penalties to instead play the territory game. It looked like the wrong move at the time but in the end it paid off. They earned this win the hard way. They deserved it.
However, you thought the same old story would prevail early on. By the 30-minute mark, Munster were ahead but their 8-3 lead didn’t reflect the run of play.
Connacht had plenty of territory in this period – over 70 per cent – but were unable to make the most of it. They also were holding their own in the scrum – indeed Finlay Bealham won a penalty inside his own 22 via this source – while their maul defence, more or less, negated Munster’s lineout drives.
The trouble was that Connacht repeatedly spoiled their good work; their passing often failing to reach its intended target while on one other occasion Ultan Dillane ended up getting penalised for an accidental offside as Connacht’s maul inched towards the line.
Still, some fine work from Kieran Marmion led to a 15th minute penalty, Damian De Allende penalised for illegally handling the ball on the ground. Jack Carty converted from in front of the posts. Connacht 3-0 Munster.
Their lead didn’t last long, just two minutes in fact, when Dillane was harshly pinged for the second time in the game, Ben Healy nailing his kick to level the scores.
Six minutes later, Healy was lining up a conversion, after Munster got a try from nowhere, Healy blocking down Mack Hansen’s attempted clearance before the ball bounced teasingly away from Shane Daly and into the end-goal area. Andrew Conway was the quickest to react. Accordingly Munster led, 8-3.
They should have been further ahead by half-time as the pattern of this game swiftly changed. For half an hour, Munster were content to kick into Connacht territory rather than build phases and we soon learned why. Once they got a foothold here in the 33rd minute, they didn’t leave the Connacht 22 until half-time.
How they failed to score in this period is a complete mystery considering the amount of pressure they applied, Conway going close on a couple of occasions, Hansen hauling him down each time, before a series of tap-and-goes saw Alex Kendellen, Chris Farrell, Gavin Coombes and Niall Scannell all getting within inches of the line as Connacht flirted with the offside laws.
Repeat offending eventually led to Chris Busby issuing a yellow card – Oisin Dowling the one who disappeared to the bin for 10 minutes – and somehow Connacht held out. Realistically they shouldn’t have but a combination of their bravery mixed with Munster’s predictability allowed them get to escape. It proved to be the game’s turning point.
Come the start of the second-half, there was a different talking point, Busby’s frustration with the tetchy behaviour from both sets of players leading to two more yellow cards – one to issued Healy, the other to Shane Delahunt – after they both engaged in a bit of jostling as they left the park at half-time.
While it wasn’t the crime of the century, you could understand Busby’s decision. The game was veering out of control. His job was to maintain it.
The question, though, was which team would cope with such key absentees. Connacht, for the first seven minutes of the second-half had just 13 men, Munster of course were without their playmaker and goalkicker. Bealham ended up throwing into the lineout in Delahunt’s absence and to make matters worse, Carty was withdrawn from the game with an injury to his lip.
Initially they missed him. Fitzgerald, his replacement, missed a kickable penalty on 43 minutes and then failed to catch an admittedly poor pass from Marmion a few minutes later. Had he taken it, Connacht would have moved into the red zone.
But Fitzgerald grew into the game as it went on and by the end he was dictating affairs, playing well, making good decisions. Aki made a poor one seven minutes from time, failing to release to Marmion when he felt he could add to his try tally.
It didn’t matter, though. Munster looked out of puff by the end. Certainly they were out of ideas. Connacht’s day and deservedly so.
Connacht scorers
Tries: Aki
Conversions: Fitzgerald (1/1)
Penalties: Carty (1/1), Fitzgerald (0/1)
Munster scorers
Tries: C9nway
Conversions: Healy (0/1)
Penalties: Healy 1/2
CONNACHT: Tiernan O’Halloran; John Porch (rep: Johnny Murphy 46-47 – Tom Farrell ’55), Sammy Arnold, Bundee Aki, Mack Hansen; Jack Carty (rep: Conor Fitzgerald ‘39), Kieran Marmion; Matthew Burke (rep: Tietie Tuimauga ‘71), Shane Delahunt (yellow card 40-50; rep: ‘Murphy ’65), Finlay Bealham (rep: Dominic Robertson-McCoy ‘64); Ultan Dillane (rep: Eoghan Masterson ’65), Oisín Dowling (yellow card 37-47); Cian Prendergast (rep: Abraham Papali’i ’70), Conor Oliver, Jarrad Butler.
Replacements not used: Matthew Devine,
MUNSTER: Mike Haley; Andrew Conway, Chris Farrell (yellow card 57-67), Damian de Allende, Shane Daly; Ben Healy (yellow card 40-50 – rep: Jack Crowley ‘), Craig Casey (rep Neil Cronin ‘68); Dave Kilcoyne (rep: Jeremy Loughman ‘59), Niall Scannell (rep: Diarmuid Barron ‘65), Stephen Archer (rep: Keynan Knox ‘59); Jean Kleyn (rep: Thomas Ahern ’44), Fineen Wycherley; Jack O’Donoghue (captain), Alex Kendellen (rep: Jack Daly ’63), Gavin Coombes.
Replacements: Jack Crowley, Rory Scannell.
Referee: Chris Busby (IRFU)
