Coaches come and go, some of the playing personnel changes, but the script follows such a dog-eared course that ultimately most things, and primarily the result, stay the same.

As with the last time St Mary's hosted Young Munster in a Division One summit meeting - the famous Lansdowne Road decider of 1993 - so on Saturday the travelling hordes made this effectively a home game for the visitors, galvanising their men into wanting the result more and, for good measure, perhaps even got at the referee as well.

There could be little arguing with Peter Clohessy's post-match explanation that Munsters' were simply more determined than their hosts. "It was great to get the win, it's been coming for a long time," Clohessy said. "We seemed to be the hungrier side on the day and, of course, there was my brilliant leadership," he quipped, explaining: "Mike Lynch took a bang on the hand so I took over the captaincy; he didn't know whether he was coming or going."

Clohessy attributed Munsters' slow start to the impact of Saturday morning's 6.30 a.m. train journey had on them - something he'd think twice about doing again. "It took us a while to realise we were in a match."

Assessing this "great scalp" and Munsters' sudden emergence as league leaders after relatively ineffectual seasons of late, Clohessy said: "We've a much better backline. There are no stars in the team, and everybody works for each other."

By contrast, nor could there be any disputing Brent Pope's frank admission that St Mary's made far more basic errors when the heat came on. Playing into a strong wind initially, St Mary's had stormed into a misleadingly auspicious 7-0 lead after just four minutes and looked set to win handily enough. Using Victor Costello at inside centre off a five metre scrum, with Gareth Gannon trading places at blindside flanker, Costello punched a big hole in the Munsters' midfield and with the entire defence fanning out, Trevor Brennan followed up to pick up and plough over relatively unchallenged. St Mary's were purposeful in everything they did, Malcolm O'Kelly giving them a huge platform even when Munsters' doubled up on him on the St Mary's throw. Aside from his more accurate throwing, Peter Smyth was a livewire close-in, Trevor Brennan was making a higher quota than usual of his bear-hugging big hits, and Kiwi flanker Paul Higgins was making a huge impression in the tackle, at restarts and in support at the breakdown.

Gradually though, the two-to-one penalty count and the first-half wind wore St Mary's down, the ultimate tally of penalties courtesy of referee Olan Trevor going to Munsters' by 20-11. Tom Cregan needed three sighters in the wind, but a couple of penalties by the break made it 7-6.

Ironically, the wind died a bit by the break but a persistent drizzle arrived. The visiting hordes became increasingly vocal, and by now Ian Dillon and Des Clohessy in particular were making the biggest impression of any of the forwards on the pitch with the ball in hand.

A long touch find by Mike Lynch, who had passed over the captaincy from early on to Peter Clohessy after sustaining a bang on the head, confirmed the impression that the wind was less of a factor behind St Mary's.

Within moments, Mike Mullins bounced off a couple of chasers as he counter-attacked from inside his own 10 metres, and the ensuing bout of ball retention by Munsters' as they drove upfield through five or six phases was simply beyond St Mary's in the second half.

Dillon and Des Clohessy again made some big yardage in that drive, which eventually set up a drop goal chance in the 62nd minute for Lynch which the centre landed to put Munsters' in front.

As Munsters' passion and possession continuity rose in equal measure, so - as is seemingly their wont - St Mary's hit the panic buttons. They could hardly take the ball beyond second phase in the second-half and so telegraphed a late drop goal chance for Fergal Campion that it might as well have come with a loud-hailer pronouncement.

That said, St Mary's had a strong case for offside as about half a dozen Munsters' players pushed up in a line; instead Trevor penalised Campion for not releasing at the breakdown. Having then given a very delayed off-side decision against O'Kelly and seen Cregan miss the posts, Trevor apparently didn't see Kelvin McNamee catching cleanly without even hinting at a touch down and running the ball out from behind his posts.

With Gareth Gannon having given Dennis Hickie a bit of space (the in-form Irish winger was scandalously under-used) and making his way up the touchline, to the bemusement of the St Mary's players, Trevor brought them back for a drop out.

"Some of the decisions were just absolutely beyond me," said an exasperated Pope. "I can't understand why they weren't deemed to be offside and yet whenever we crept up we were always penalised. We just seemed to get penalised out of the game. All you want is some consistency but we're not getting it."

"Fair play to Munsters'," Pope said. "They have that need, that want. They carried the ball well into the wind and made far less basic errors than we did. We just didn't take our opportunities. They didn't make the stupid mistakes that we were making; we left the ball lying on the ground and we didn't clear rucks. We didn't use our backs and we relied too much on Victor (Costello). The further the game went on the more we panicked. You've got to swallow it, you've got to play above the referees, but we're back in the pack now."

Scoring sequence: 4 mins Brennan try, McHugh con 7-0; 31: Cregan pen 7-3; 34: Cregan pen 7-6; 63: Lynch drop goal 7-9.

St Mary's: K McNamee; D Hickie, M McHugh, G Gannon, J McWeeney; F Campion, A O'Sullivan; P Coyle, P Smyth, D Clare, I Bloomer, M O'Kelly, T Brennan (capt), V Costello, P Higgins.

Young Munster: M Mullins; J Carey, M Lynch, L Doyle, T Cregan; E Buckley, M Prendergast; D Clohessy, M Hayes, P Clohessy, M O'Halloran, P O'Connell, I Dillon, B Buckley, G Earls. Replacements: S McCahill for Lynch (temp five-seven mins).

Referee: O Trevor (Munster).