Connacht were moments away from recording a rare win over Munster tonight in the Celtic League, but in a dramatic finish to the game Munster clawed their way to a draw (27-27) in the 9th minute of injury time.


From the kick-off Connacht looked very agressive and hungry for the game and Munster were left trailing by 7 points to nothing after 11 minutes thanks to a Niall O’Brien try under the posts, but this seemed to awaken the Munster side who then scored four trys without reply. Anthony Horgan, the again impressive Dennis Leamy and Shaun Payne. During this period Gordon McIlwham got sin-binned but this didn’t seem to affect Munster at all.


Connacht got back into the game when after the superb Christian Cullen took a quick tap from a mark in the 22 was left without any support, Conor McPhilips pounced on the ball to bring Connacht to within 3 points of Munster. Cullen soon stretched the lead again with a try under the posts right before half time. This also assured Munster of the bonus point for four tries.


Connacht opted to kick for goal from a penalty early in the second half and that brought the socre to 24 - 17 in Munster’s favour. Despite pressure from Munster, they failed to score and Connacht managed to go over for a try thanks to Adrian Clarke. This brought them level, then thanks to another penalty Connacht took the lead.


Munster threw everything at Connacht for the remainder of the match but nothing seemed to work. Cullen, Horgan, Flannery and Leamy all made impressive runs but the Connacht defensive line was resolute. Munster were then awarded a penalty in the 9th minute of injury time to level the scores at 27-all. Both teams will have to do with 3 points.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 12th, 2004 at 4:21 am and is filed under Connacht, Munster, Celtic League. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.