By Gavin Rich.
A try from wing Liam Coombes five minutes from time ensured Munster of a full house of log points as the Irish province completed a comprehensive 33-3 win over the Emirates Lions in a Vodacom United Rugby match played in wet and blustery conditions in Cork on Friday night.
The win further confirmed the resurgence that Munster started shortly before the break for the international window in November after they’d made a poor start to life after the departure of former coach Johann van Graan.
This was their fourth win in their last five starts, with their only defeat since November being their narrow defeat to Leinster two weeks ago.
The final scoreline was bolstered for Munster by an additional try off the final move of the game, a second try to hooker Scott Buckley and his team’s fifth, and in truth the winning margin of 30 points was flattering to the hosts.
They did deserve to win as they dominated possession, particularly in the second half, and were slick and efficient in most of what they did, but the Lions should have made more of the strong wind that was at their back in the first half as well as their massive scrumming dominance for most of the game.
The Lions certainly did have their opportunities in the first half, but were unable to capitalise on the destruction they wreaked on the Munster eight with their scrumming.
That was partly down to poor decision making, with the decision to release the ball from an attacking scrum when they’d had several scrum penalties in a row proving a costly mistake.
The Lions were camping at that point on the Munster line and with the home scrum back-pedalling they would almost certainly have forced another penalty, and by that point surely it would have been a penalty try and a yellow card, had they kept the ball in and maintained the pressure.
However, while the Lions’ scrum was huge, and several Lions players also produced impressive tackling stats which was an indication they certainly can’t be faulted for commitment, the visitors just never had the efficiency and clinical touches of their opponent.
And while the scrum was dominant, they struggled in the lineouts, with two of their three first half lineouts going against the flow.
BEREFT OF IDEAS
The Lions halfbacks also didn’t control the game to the extent that the Munster duo did, particularly Munster flyhalf Ben Healy, and that contributed to the visitors not getting the territorial advantage that the strong wind at their back should have demanded.
The Lions started solidly enough and were the first on the board through a Jordan Hendrikse penalty in the sixth minute. However, through all their defensive endeavour, the Lions also made defensive errors, and Munster’s first try, which was a driving maul dotted down by Buckley in the 10th minute, was scored too easily.
Then came that long period when the Lions had quite a bit of the game, mainly due to their scrum, but Munster were able to relieve after Edwill van der Merwe was penalised when the Lions ran off the scrum they should have continued to advance towards the line.
The relieving kick culminated in Lions scrumhalf Morne van den Berg being penalised for offside and the ball pinged into the corner.
Munster didn’t get the drive right on that occasion but some good direct play from the forwards eventually saw Jack O’Donohue run through some ineffectual tackling to score a try that, with Healy’s conversion, put daylight between the teams on the scoreboard for the first time on the half hour mark.
The 12-3 advantage to Munster was also the halftime score, and it remained like that until the 50th minute, which was when Munster again exposed the Lions’ vulnerability when they took the direct route as scrumhalf Paddy Patterson scythed through to make it 19-3.
For a long time it looked like the Lions’ refusal to die might lead to Munster missing out on their try scoring bonus point, but while the Lions made a hash of any attack opportunities by making mistakes and just not being accurate enough, Munster put it together when it mattered to send Coombes in for the bonus point try.
It wasn’t a night completely without positives for the Lions, and young Emile van Heerden can certainly feel he enjoyed an impressive debut for his new franchise, particularly defensively.
And of course their scrumming would surely have forced a much closer game, if not a win, were other aspects of their play better.
Unfortunately the Lions do look a bit bereft of ideas once the ball has gone beyond third or fourth phase, not that it was really a night for great attacking rugby, even though the game was played on a synthetic 4G pitch.
SCORES:
Munster 33 – Tries: Scott Buckley 2, Jack O’Donohue, Paddy Patterson and Liam Coombes; Conversions: Ben Healy 4.
Emirates Lions 3– Penalty: Jordan Hendrikse.