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The Scarlets may be out of the Heineken Cup but a victory in France against Castres Olympique could put them in the hunt for a Amlin Challenge Cup quarter-finals. - 19/01/2012 15:00
The Scarlets entertain Munster at Parc Y Scarlets in the first of the mouth-watering back-to-back clashes between the two unbeaten sides in Pool 1 in this season’s Heineken Cup.
The Welsh region and the Irish province have both won their opening two games and will be under no illusions how important victories will be in their bid to reach the knockout stages of the tournament.
A rampant Scarlets side beat Northampton Saints, last season’s beaten finalists, to go top of the Pool with an emphatic 28-23 win at Franklin Gardens, while Munster have had the boot of Ronan O’Gara to thank for wins over Saints and Castres.
The Scarlets, who haven’t reached the last eight of the tournament since 2007, will be hoping to end that run with victories over double Heineken Cup winners, Munster, over the next two weeks.
The Irish province, winners in 2006 and 2008, missed out on the knockout stages of the tournament for the first time in 12 years last season and will want to make sure that doesn’t happen in this campaign.
Ronan O'Gara celebrated his 100th Heineken Cup appearance with a 12 point contribution that allowed Munster to march to the top of Pool 1 with a 17-14 victory over the hitherto unbeaten Scarlets. - 10/12/2011 18:59
Ronan O’Gara celebrated his 100th Heineken Cup appearance with a 12 point contribution that allowed Munster to march to the top of Pool 1 with a 17-14 victory over the hitherto unbeaten Scarlets.
The home side had a record Heineken Cup crowd to celebrate, 13,183, but after taking an early 8-0 lead they were outmuscled by Paul O’Connell’s pack and failed to take their chances.
The Scarlets may have lost Wales wing George North before kick-off, but they still felt they had enough behind the scrum to maintain their winning sequence in the Pool and end a run of 12 successive defeats to Munster.
It was as long ago as the Heineken Cup quarter-final of April, 2007, that the Scartlets last beat Munster and this made it an uncomfortable 13th straight defeat. A 14th at Thomond Park next week could be terminal for their chances of emerging from their Pool in the New Year
Even though they had to weather a pretty torrid opening storm, which saw the home side race into that 8-0 lead and miss another five points with the boot, Munster never panicked and slowly, but surely, worked out how to frustrate their hosts.
Starved of any real quality possession after their blistering start it became harder and harder for the home side to add to their fifth minute try from back row man Aaron Shingler.
The quick thinking Shingler popped up in the Munster 22 after Jonathan Davies had hacked on a loose ball near half-way. That score gave the home side real heart, although the conversion rebound off the upright by Rhys Priestland went alongside an earlier penalty miss.
Those crucial lost points could have made all the difference in the final analysis. O’Gara, on the other hand, kicked tow penalties in the first half either side of a Niall Ronan try down the right touchline and that was enough to give Munster an 11-8 interval lead.
With their scrum taking charge, and the back row trio of Peter O’Mahony, Ronan and Priestland levelled the scores 10 minutes into the second half as the Scarlets rallied once more, but they were guilty of too many handling errors and conceding too many penalties. O’Gara kept hitting the spot and the lead returned to Munster at 14-11 and then rose to six points.
Stephen Jones set up a grandstand finish with a 67th minute penalty, but Munster’s legendary composure under pressure came to the fore and they held their defensive line superbly against wave after wave of attacks.
Their reward was a third straight Pool victory, and a second on the road, and they now lead by two points from the Scarlets.
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