Reaction: John Kelly wouldn't be drawn. The Munster and Ireland winger stood outside the post-match marquee accepting the plaudits but also putting out a little bush fire that some were keen to fan.

"It's huge," said Kelly. "It's brilliant to have two Irish teams still involved at this level. I think it's going to be their (Leinster's) home game."

"But you were born in Dublin, weren't you?" he was asked.

"Don't push that one," came the reply.

Hours, months, years in the capital, it doesn't matter; Kelly is Munster through and through.

The fact he'd been through trench warfare for most of the match would have clearly indicated where his loyalties lay. It has long been a Munster mantra that they know how to win hard and tough.

"It's hard to realise on video how hard it was," said assistant coach Jim Williams. "It was very physical at the breakdown. They (Perpignan) didn't seem disappointed giving away penalties. They just wanted to compete."

While it may have appeared the French didn't care what they gave away the truth was, that in the end it cost them dearly and they knew it. Annoyed at their own ability to self-destruct under pressure, lock Nathan Hines and Christophe Manas, the Perpignan winger, were sure where their side lost.

Their first move toward the exit door was when captain Bernard Goutta failed to make it to the pitch. The second was some feverish indiscipline in the second half.

"We lost the match at the beginning of the second half," said Manas. "They took six points in six minutes. It was the beginning of the end."

Goutta pulled out at the last minute. "He had problems with his teeth," said Hines. "And yeah, I think the fact that he didn't play had a bearing on the match. It's not just him as a player that we missed today but also the effect he has on the team."

Ronan O'Gara kicked Ireland to 13-10 ahead on 46 minutes after a ruck offence from the Romanian hooker Marius Tincu. Nicolas Mas had already been binned in the first half for a lunge over a ruck and Nicolas Durand was soon to follow for hitting Peter Stringer.

"I'd call it (the match) a kind of tough forward battle," said the Munster captain, Anthony Foley. "We said it would be like that. It was whichever side didn't back down and I thought of our lads in the first half playing into a breeze with no kicking options. I thought we had to keep the ball in hand, which we did brilliantly in the first half. The fact we were down at half-time was a slight disappointment. But it meant that in the second half if we kept doing what we were doing we were going to be okay.

"It was a matter of time and a matter of keeping going. We talked to one another out on the pitch and made sure no one would step out of line."

The theme of being disciplined and not giving up any easy scores was high on coach Declan Kidney's agenda but so too was he concerned at Munster's lack of preparation. After the friendly against Llanelli was cancelled last week and the return of the international players forced selection changes, there was anxiety the team might not fire as a unit.

"When we didn't have the game last week the cost of that might have been that we may not have been prepared but we had a little cameo session for seven or eight minutes last Tuesday night which resembled the 80 minutes out there," said Kidney. "I think it is thanks to the captain and Mick O'Driscoll. They said this was exactly what we were going to come up against. It was because of good leadership that we went out for those seven minutes.

"But it was just one of those games where you had to have patience. It was vital not to give up silly scores and important to concentrate whenever they did have the ball, things like quick 22 drop-outs. They also had a huge drop-goal attempt when we were only three points up.

"It was a real start-stop game. Everybody knows that.

"But we just managed to pick off scores and stay disciplined. That's basically where we won out in what was just a tight game."