HEINEKEN CUP POOL THREE: Ospreys 19 Munster 15:WHAT WAS the feeling in the minus five-degree air around Swansea? It was that four points were lost and not that a losing bonus point was saved.
Munster, though, are grateful for that crumb as they left Liberty Stadium with patching up to be done before January.
A scrum that brought the twice tournament winners into all sorts of problems and intense periods of pressure that yielded very little for them added up to an oddly fragile Munster.
It was an incarnation of an animal that you don’t see very often, a little panicky, turning ball over when they should be hurting the opposition and a set-piece that towards the end of the match had become the Ospreys strongest platform for bringing them down. It’s difficult to recall when a Munster scrum was dominated so comprehensively.
With the Ospreys tighthead prop Adam Jones fittingly earning man of the match, that attacking forum and a fearlessly physical defence, when Munster were in their ascendant phases, was enough for the Ospreys to keep this pool wide open for at least another round of matches. Away to Toulon. Another big game. Are Munster Heineken Cup games ever of normal dimensions?
But it was the manner of the Ospreys win that will have caused intense frustration and some soul searching and no other phase illustrated the self-inflicted wounds more than a tranche of play at the beginning of the second half.
The Irish side again started brightly and began hammering away at the Ospreys line.
Body after body hurled forward only to be met, occasionally with both players off the ground, by an Ospreys defender with equally committed aggression.
In all Munster were nine minutes in Ospreys “green zone” before the ball was turned over and kicked into the Munster half. Hands on the ball on the ground by captain Denis Leamy gave Dan Biggar his opportunity and Ospreys took their three points for 16-10. It was a crushing period for Munster; all the pressure, all the territory and all the go-forward intensity and three miserable points on the Ospreys side of the board. More inventiveness and a little more patience and they would have scored a try for their graft.
But that was the way the game frustratingly bounced along. In the 66th minute a Ronan O’Gara punt long into Ospreys area was fetched by Biggar, who appeared to illegally step out having first controlled the ball in play. The result was O’Gara’s ball was dead with referee Romain Poite calling an Ospreys scrum back in the Munster half. Naturally with Jones, Paul James and Richard Hibbard towering the scrum creaked and popped, this time with John Hayes at tighthead and not Tony Buckley. Another Ospreys penalty and 21-year-old Biggar stepped up for his final penalty of the match and his 14th point.
“From the off, our scrum was definitely second best. It’s a huge area in rugby union and it was one area we fell down in,” said Leamy afterwards. “We can have no complaints. I think the ref could see a lot and he took a lot of decisions against us and it hurt us badly. Everyone will look at the frontrow but we’ve got to take this on as a forward pack, look at ourselves and be a lot better than we were today. If you went through our dressingroom, there’s fellas just absolutely gutted in there.”
Munster actually won the match two tries to one, the first coming after Sam Tuitpou took the ball into contact on 26 minutes. Leamy, who spent quite some time making yards, added his weight to the forward move and then David Wallace pumped forward. It was Buckley who carried over and Munster had their first try.
Almost straight away Ospreys hit back, when they overloaded the right with bodies and a massive wave of limbs carried several black shirts including the mischievous Mike Phillips over the Munster line. Wian du Preez valiantly tried to hold the big scrumhalf up, while fullback Barry Davies stood to capably block O’Gara. But the TMO awarded the score which Biggar converted for 10-10.
Munster’s second try on 58 minutes rewarded Keith Earls’ hunger to chase. A ball chipped forward by Doug Howlett kindly bounced backwards and high inside the Ospreys half. It was the outside centre who was well positioned and had the juice to take advantage with a simple catch and sprint finish; O’Gara’s conversion knocking wide off the post for 16-15.
With Biggar kicking five from five, the penalties were always hurting Munster and rather than finish with a flourish, as you would expect from the former champions chasing a match, they were frantically back-pedalling and scrambling around their line.
Ospreys sought to deny them even the bonus point and maybe could have, had their decision making been sharper; tapping two penalties at the end instead of opting for the demolishing scrum was perplexing and could come back to bite.
But that’s how it ended, Munster appearing uncomfortable with where the game had taken them after a match in which their set-piece and inability to convert pressure into scores served to comprehensively undermine confidence and ultimately the team performance too.
Scoring sequence: 4 mins: R O’Gara pen 0-3; 18: D Biggar pen 3-3; 26: T Buckley try, O’Gara pen 3-10; 28: M Phillips try, Biggar con 10-10; 30: Biggar pen 13-10. halftime. 54: Biggar pen 16-10; 58: K Earls try 16-15; 66: Biggar pen 19-15.
OSPREYS:B Davies; N Walker, T Bowe, J Hook, R Fussell; D Biggar, M Phillips; P James, R Hibbard, A Jones, R Jones, A-Wyn Jones (capt), J Collins, M Holah, J Thomas. Replacements: 65 mins I Gough for R Jones, D Jones for A Jones; 77 mins A Bishop for B Davies.
MUNSTER:P Warick; D Howlett; K Earls, S Tuitupou, J Murphy; R O'Gara, T O'Leary; W du Preez, D Varley, T Buckley, D O'Callaghan, M O'Driscoll, J Coughlan, D Wallace, D Leamy. Replacements: 52 mins J Hayes for T Buckley; 55 mins A Quinlans for J Coughlan, P Stringer for T O'Leary; 67 mins L Mafi for S Tuitpou; 71 mins D Ryan for D O'Callaghan.
Referee: R Poite.
