Six-try Munster end Benetton's winning streak
Munster ran in six tries as they coasted to a 40-30 BKT United Rugby Championship victory over Benetton to leapfrog the Italians.
Paddy Patterson, Jack O’Sullivan, John Hodnett, Jean Kleyn, Antoine Frisch and Joey Carbery went over for tries with Carbery converting five of them to hand Benetton just a second loss in their last 10 contests.
Ignacio Mendy completed a hat-trick of tries in the last minute to secure a bonus point for the hosts, who also crossed through Marco Zanon.
Benetton drew first blood in the fifth minute when Filippo Drago broke through the Munster defensive line and he quickly offloaded to Jacob Umaga, who in turn fed Zanon to motor over in the left corner.
Umaga’s attempted conversion hit the upright with the 90-second shot clock in operation for the first time this weekend.
The Italians raced into a 12-0 lead seven minutes later when a quick ball inside from a ruck saw Rhyno Smith power through the line and, when he was eventually brought down, his long pass picked out Mendy to canter over in the right corner with Umaga adding the extras.
Munster got themselves back into the game almost immediately when Calvin Nash collected his own chip forward and with full-back Smith out of position, an inside pass to Patterson gave the scrum-half a simple try with Carbery converting.
The visitors silenced the home crowd to go ahead after 30 minutes following superb work from their back row.
Hodnett broke clear through the middle and drew the tacklers before flipping the ball to O’Sullivan on his shoulder to cruise in under the posts and Carbery’s conversion put them 14-12 up.
Umaga restored the Benetton lead on the stroke of half-time when he sent a straightforward penalty from in front of the posts over for a 15-14 lead.
It took Munster just two minutes after the interval to grab their third try.
Munster sent the ball down the line from a ruck just outside the Benetton 22 and Hodnett then burst through two poor tackle attempts to run in under the posts and give Carbery an easy conversion.
Benetton reduced the lead to three points as Ben Healy was shown a yellow card for a deliberate knock-on and Umaga sent the penalty through the posts.
Despite being a man down, Munster went over for the bonus-point try as Kleyn squirmed over from close range.
With replacement hooker Diarmuid Barron yellow carded for conceding a penalty close to Munster’s line for playing off his feet, Benetton went in for a third try.
Quick ball from the scrum found Marcus Watson and he drew his man before feeding Mendy to go over for his second try in the corner.
Munster then wrapped it with a pair of insurance tries in the final 10 minutes.
Healy’s clever kick was gathered by Frisch to go over in the corner before Carbery took advantage of a tiring home defence with a simple score before Mendy claimed this third.
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Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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