By Gavin Rich.
Munster fought back from a big deficit to grab a 22-all draw against the Cell C Sharks at HollywoodBets Kings Park on Saturday that effectively kills the Durban team’s chances of playing Heineken Championship Cup rugby next year.
The Sharks needed to win their final Vodacom United Rugby Championship league game to ensure a place in next year’s edition of the more elite of the two European competitions, the Challenge Cup very much being the second tier. The two points for a draw isn’t enough as they needed to lift to at least seventh, but can’t do that now as Connacht, who are still to play on Saturday, are ahead of them even before the game in Glasgow kicks off.
The Sharks will remain rooted in eighth place regardless of what happens between the Glasgow Warriors and Connacht at The Scotstoun after a night at the office that was a disaster in so many respects. Let’s start with the injuries, with Siya Kolisi, their captain, making such an impressive start to what was his last game for the Sharks in Durban but then limping off after just five minutes with what looked like it could be a serious knee injury.
Later in the half their flyhalf Curwin Bosch, in obvious pain, followed his captain to the sidelines. So those two players are unlikely to be part of the team that now has to go to Leinster, the most difficult of opponents in this competition, in the quarterfinal two weeks from now.
Second half implosion may have cost SA
The Sharks’ second half implosion also cost South African rugby as a whole, as it now looks likely that the DHL Stormers and the Vodacom Bulls will clash in one of the quarterfinals. Meaning that although that will mean there will be one South African team in the semifinals, it is unlikely to be more than that barring the Sharks pulling off an unlikely miracle in Dublin.
It all looked so positive for the Sharks when they led 19-3 at halftime after a dominant first half. And four minutes into the second half, they made it 22-3, and looked like they were cruising to the big win that would have pleased not only the Sharks fans but also those who didn’t want to see two South African teams clashing in the quarterfinal.
If the Sharks had won and denied Munster a bonus point, Munster would have been traveling back across the equator to face the Stormers regardless of what happens in Glasgow later in the evening.
Penalty try and Boeta’s mistake were the turning points
Just like was the case in Cape Town the previous week, where Munster won by two points against the Stormers, it was easy to identify the turning point. At DHL Stadium the turning point was the 10 minutes where Munster resisted the Stormers’ prolonged period of pressure on their line, at Kings Park it was probably the moment that Boeta Chamberlain, who had kicked a long range penalty minutes earlier, kicked a penalty that would have provided the Sharks with a great attacking lineout opportunity and a chance to stabilise things after seconds earlier they’d conceded a penalty try after Aphelele Fassi, on for Bosch, had gone offside in trying to defend near his line.
It looked like a marginal call but definitely not a howler from the referee. So those two moments together were what started the Sharks’ implosion. After the Sharks had missed out on their advantageous set piece opportunity in the Munster red zone, the visitors struck back with their second try in the space of six minutes, with Calvin Nash dotting down after chasing a slippery kick into the right corner. Again, a marginal call as Nash appeared to put his foot on the line as he grounded the ball.
Replacement flyhalf Ben Healy didn’t kick the conversion but at 22-15 Munster were suddenly back in the game. They’d also have been galvanised by the knowledge that the seven point deficit put them into losing bonus point territory, and that was all they needed to make sure of fifth place.
But they weren’t satisfied with that and pretty much dominated the rest of the game, with Munster being the team on the attack and pressing for the win at the end after they’d drawn level with a dot down from their experienced scrumhalf Conor Murray.
Naive rugby from hosts
Like there has been for much of the Sharks’ season, there was a lot of naive rugby from them, such as when Chamberlain kicked the ball back when surely keeping the ball in hand and attacking was the right way to go with just a few minutes to go and given that by then the Sharks just weren’t seeing the ball.
Certainly there was a red blanket over the ball for the entire last half hour and on that basis you could probably argue that Munster deserved to win, not that it mattered. They were always going to finish fifth if they got a point from their visit to Durban.
It didn’t look likely when Bongi Mbonambi drove over for a try in the sixth minute, and then came further tries from Werner Kok and Sikhumbuzo Notshe to open a big 19-3 lead at halftime.
Although Munster had won 60 per cent of the possession, the Sharks were already doing much of the tackling at that point. But their defence was outstanding, certainly much improved on much of their earlier performances this season, so it looked like they were on their way to a comfortable win. At the halfway point, they wouldn’t have seen what was to come after that.
SCORES
CELL C SHARKS 22 – Tries: Bongi Mbonambi, Werner Kok and Sikhumbuzo Notshe; Conversions: Curwin Bosch and Boeta Chamberlain; Penalty: Boeta Chamberlain.
MUNSTER 22 – Tries: Calvin Nash and Conor Murray; Penalty try; Conversion: Ben Healy; Conversion: Jack Crowley.