Munster 39 Treviso 13:MUNSTER CONSOLIDATED their lead at the top of the Magners League last night with this bonus-point win at Thomond Park.
James Coughlan, Damien Varley, David Wallace, Mike Sherry and Keith Earls all touched down for Tony McGahan’s men as they saw off the hapless Italians with little difficulty.
Treviso came into the match showing 11 changes from the side which caused Perpignan some trouble the week before, and never really looked likely to cause an upset.
Ludovico Nitoglia scored a second-half consolation try, but that was as good as they could muster for the entirety of the game.
Munster rarely got out of second gear throughout a rather drab first half but still managed to register three tries.
To a large extent, Treviso were architects of their downfall, suffering two yellow cards in the opening period.
Prop Franco Sbaraglini was first sent to the bin for collapsing the scrum, and his replacement, Augusto Allori, was also carded for another scrum infringement.
Munster were good value for their lead when Coughlan crossed over for a try early on following good forward pressure close to the Italian line. Varley scored the second in similar circumstances, going some way to making up for a patchy first-half lineout performance.
And the game looked dead and buried when Wallace added a third shortly before half-time. O’Gara converted each of the tries and tacked on two penalties as Munster went into the break with an unassailable 27-3 lead.
It didn’t take long for the bonus-point try to arrive. O’Gara scooped up a bouncing ball in midfield, Wallace broke the covering line of defence and Earls stretched the legs to score in the corner.
Wian Du Preez became the third front-rower to see yellow when he dropped the scrum and Treviso gained some respite when Nitoglia capitalised with a try.
Munster played out the rest of the game as if trying to avoid any further injuries until Sherry crossed over for his first senior try with the last play of the game.
MUNSTER: S Deasy; D Howlett, K Earls, J Murphy, D Hurley; R O’Gara, P Stringer; W du Preez, D Varley, J Hayes, M O’Driscoll, D Ryan, A Quinlan, D Wallace, J Coughlan. Replacements: M Sherry for Varley (53 mins), P O’Mahony for Quinlan, D Williams for Stringer (both 59 mins), T Buckley for Hayes (64 mins), I Dineen for O’Gara (70 mins), D O’Callaghan for O’Driscoll (71 mins).
BENETTON TREVISO: B Williams; L Nitoglia, E Galon, A Vilk, B De Jager; K Burton, F Semenzato; F Sbaraglini, L Ghiraldini, I Fernandez Rouyet, E Pavanello, V Bernabò, F Minto, B Vermaak, R Barbieri. Replacements: A Pavanello for E Pavanello, S Picone for Minto (both 45 mins), P Di Santo for Fernandez Rouyet (52 mins), T Botes for Semenzato (60 mins).
Referee: David Jones
