Ryan a no-show as Dragons claim shock win over Munster
Dragons pulled off one of the shocks of the season by defeating Munster 23-17 for the first time since 2015.
The Gwent region put their off-field troubles behind them to record their first win at Rodney Parade for over 18 months.
With director of rugby, Dean Ryan, reported to have departed after three years in the post, it was left to head coach, Dai Flanagan, to pick up a win in his first home game in charge.
Dragons had to rely on a superb individual try from Rio Dyer for the victory with JJ Hanrahan kicking six penalties.
Munster’s tries came from Stephen Archer and Ben Healy, with the latter adding two conversions and a penalty.
A simple penalty from Healy gave Munster an early lead but their former player, Hanrahan, nullified this with a more difficult effort from 50 metres.
Munster then suffered a double injury blow when Keith Earls and Jean Kleyn left the field simultaneously before receiving further setbacks when Hanrahan kicked four penalties in quick succession to put the Welsh region firmly in the driving seat.
Munster were rattled as a Dragons pack, led by the ferocious efforts of Bradley Roberts and Ross Moriarty, tore into them, causing them to turn over possession on a regular basis.
However, they recovered to score the first try when Healy made a sharp break to send Simon Zebo away down the left flank. The wing was brought down by a high tackle from Dyer with a penalty awarded.
It was taken quickly for Archer to crash over with the referee also yellow-carding Dyer for the earlier high challenge.
Moments later, Munster capitalised on Dyer’s absence when Healy evaded a tackle from Rhodri Williams for an easy run-in which the outside half converted to leave his side with a 17-15 half-time advantage.
Four minutes after the restart, with Dyer still in the sin-bin, Dragons blew a golden opportunity to go back in front when they chose a scrum instead of allowing Hanrahan to kick a simple penalty.
The third quarter finished scoreless as the home side declined to take two further chances to kick penalties.
With 11 minutes remaining, Hanrahan had his chance but surprisingly missed with a 40-metre kick but it mattered little as Dyer powered away on a 55-metre run to evade defenders for a splendid individual try.
Dragons fans roared on their heroes and their cause was helped by Munster’s flanker, Jack O’Donoghue, being yellow-carded, with Hanrahan sealing victory with the last kick of the match.
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Skelton may be brought back for the Wallabies so that would be the only reason that may hinder Wilson. Easily the form, most skilful and game IQ of any Oz 8. Valentini’s best and favourite position is 6, but lineouts may be an issue with Skelton, Valentini and Wilson. Will be interesting what Schmidt goes for but for me Wilson should be picked on form. Schmidt rewards work rate, skill and consistency. All that glitters every so often won’t be in contention. Greely is one of those players that has a knack of making the right decision. A coach is going to love him because he knows week in week out he’s going to get the job done. The second try Greely wasn’t the guy who made the initial break it was Flook, Greely was at the bottom of the ruck when Flook was off along the sideline. Greely got up and made the effort to catch up with play but also read the play nicely and hit the pass from Campbell at pace and then held the pass beautifully to Ryan.
Go to commentsSharks deserved to be far further back by the last quarter. Their tackling was awful, their set pieces were disappointing, their defensive organization was poor (especially on the Kok side of the D line), they kept making unnecessary errors, and they never looked like cracking the Clermont defense during those first 60m. Masuku kept them in touch, with some help from the Clermont generosity on penalty opportunities. Agree with the writer of this article. It was belligerence, and ability to raise their pressure game just enough, that turned the last quarter into a Bok-style shutout. Clermont have a reputation of not playing the full 80m, and there was a bit of that for sure. But, quite often when the intensity of a team drops off in the last quarter credit is due to the opponent for tiring them out. At 60m, with the Kok try, you thought that just maybe the game was on. At 70m, with the Mapimpi contribution, one felt that Clermont were fading, while facing a team that would maintain the pressure game through the final whistle. Good win in the end, but the Sharks are still playing way below their potential. And with their resources, and a coach that has had enough time to figure things out, they are running out of excuses.
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