The conditions were less than perfect, some of the players looked a bit rusty, but in the end Munster will be happy to have claimed their first win of the season. Seeing off a late challenge for Llanelli Scarlets to win by 19 points to 13.


Llanelli came out determined and dominated the opening stages of the match but Munster’s defence was resolute and neither team had a scoring opportunity until Ronan O’Gara missed a penalty in front of the posts.


Munster then began to get a bit more possession and looked far more impressive. Following a couple of close calls for Llanelli, Munster finally got their first score of the game when Alan Quinlan went over in the corner in the 27th minute for the first try of the game.



Then it looked like Munster would capitalise on their superior numbers when Llanelli loosehead John Davies was sinbinned. However instead it was Llanelli who were spurred on my the sinbinning, scoring a penalty to bring the scores to 5-3 at the break.



Following the interval Munster regrouped and Anthony Horgan set up Christian Cullen for his fourth try of the season. O’Gara converted and Munster stretched their lead to a more comfortable 12-3.



Then in the 66th minute Man of The Match, Dennis Leamy scored for Munster, with O’Gara converting again, making the lead 19-3. However with the bonus point within striking range, Munster seemed to take their foot of the gas and almost let Llanelli back into the game, with Llanelli scoring two late tries, both of which went unconverted, leaving the final score 19-13.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 4th, 2004 at 12:40 am and is filed under 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.