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Munster slay Dragons to maintain unbeaten Pro14 record
By PA
Munster maintained their unbeaten record in this season’s Guinness Pro14 league as they beat the Dragons 28-16 at Rodney Parade.
Two tries from fullback Matt Gallagher and one by wing Calvin Nash, along with three penalties and two conversions from outside-half JJ Hanrahan, were enough to keep Munster top of Conference B.
The home side’s points came from outside-half Sam Davies with a try and two penalties, plus a try from lock Matthew Screech on his 50th appearance for the Welsh region.
Dragons were briefly ahead when Davies landed an early penalty but, from then on, Munster dominated vast periods of the game.
The Irishmen, who had beaten Cardiff Blues 38-27 the previous week, put the home side under pressure for the opening 25 minutes and notched up 18 points in the process.
Hanrahan booted a simple penalty from 30 metres out to level matters before Gallagher was put away by flanker John Hodnett with a slight of hand in the right corner. It came a few moments after a blistering dash into the Dragons 22 from scrum-half Craig Casey.
Another Hanrahan penalty and a conversion of Nash’s touchdown, which came when wing Darren Sweetnam caught a kick to the left and popped the pass to his team-mate, had Munster well clear.
But the Dragons, who had won one of their three Conference A matches this season, against Italians Zebre, found something in their locker and managed a touchdown before half-time.
Captain Williams, with a penalty advantage, lifted a kick close to the Munster line over the defence. Lewis challenged Hanrahan for the ball but, when it ran loose inside the Irish try area, Davies pounced.
A second Davies penalty, conceded 25 metres out by Munster number eight Gavin Coombes who was deliberately offside, chipped the Dragons deficit down to seven points.
But Munster increased their lead again when Hanrahan booted a penalty, seconds after a skilful pass behind his back from hooker Kevin O’Byrne to Nash.
Sweetnam thought he had scored twice only for both his touchdowns to be ruled out by TMO Jon Mason for infringements.
Munster’s relentless possession and territorial advantage, coupled with the Dragons errors when they had a foothold in the opposition half, saw the Irishmen comfortably keep the home side at bay.
Finally, Munster crossed for a third try which sealed the match as attacking line-out ball was whisked across the back division. Casey, Hanrahan and centre Damian de Allende put Gallagher in for his second of the match.
Screech’s last-minute try was nothing more than a consolation for the beaten Dragons.
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Latest Comments
Well that sux.
Go to commentsLike I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.
Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.
So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).
You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.
I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?
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