With the clock in the red and the home support on their feet, Toulon were doing their damnedest to keep their Champions Cup hopes alive. Phase after phase, knowing a successful penalty would be enough – but just when they were getting into shooting range they were penalised for holding on at the tackle. Chris Ashton did not look too happy about it but he was in a tiny minority at a packed Thomond Park. Munster are back in the semi-finals of the Champions Cup where they will face – away from home – the winners of tie between Clermont and Racing.
Given the injury toll they suffered in Ireland’s grand slam campaign, to shake off the challenge of a team like Toulon is a massive achievement. With 68 minutes on the clock they looked doomed, having surrendered a lead they had won back in the first half. Four minutes later they were back in business – courtesy of a brilliant individual try by Andrew Conway, a player whose fitness had been in doubt all week.
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François Trinh-Duc will feel ill when he watches the replay of a moment with five minutes to play. Toulon were nine points ahead and had just survived a very close call when a Munster maul got over the line only to be held up. As Toulon made their escape they needed Trinh-Duc, under no great pressure, to welly it into Row Z. But he left it short.
Whereupon Conway pulled off a trick that featured catching the ball, staying in play and then working his way 45 metres through the Toulon defence. Ian Keatley’s conversion put Munster a point ahead and they stayed that way.
“It was incredibly gutsy, up there with one of the best I’ve captained,” the man of the match, Peter O’Mahony, said. “Andrew could have let the ball go out of play and let the forwards deal with it, but it was individually brilliant for him. Our backs were outstanding. Mathieu Bastareaud and Ma’a Nonu didn’t get any go-forward ball all day.”
In fact they got a fair bit, enough to win the game. And when they reflect on Semi Radradra losing the ball on the line, under minimal pressure, in the second half they will add that to the things they should have done. They could lob in also a penalty-try claim when Simon Zebo batted a ball into touch in-goal and away from Ashton in the opening minutes. Zebo got clattered for his trouble and hobbled off – nothing too serious seemingly – on 25 minutes.
Toulon had hauled their own way back into the game when they had looked out of it. After a blistering start in which they managed only six points through Anthony Belleau, Munster had reeled them in to a point where the home team were 13-6 clear on 56 minutes. Toulon gained the upper hand again with a lovely Ashton try, only to open the door to Conway.
Through it all the referee, Nigel Owens, had the TMO on speed dial. Four times in the first half alone he went upstairs – the half took 56 minutes to complete and injury was not a factor – with the longest interlude going to the decision over Conor Murray’s opportunistic touchdown to cancel Toulon’s bright start. It was hard to fathom.
A late tackle by Radradra on Darren Sweetnam allowed Keatley to give Munster a 10-6 half-time lead, and when the fly-half tacked on that scrum penalty for 13-6 one expected Toulon to fold. They had seemed to lose interest in the long wait over Murray’s try but to their credit – with Duane Vermeulen and Facundo Isa taking the fight to Munster – they got back on top. That will make losing all the harder to bear.
As for Munster, it is another entry in their European folklore. Not in the class of Ronan O’Gara’s finish to a 41-phase drive against Saints in this competition seven years ago but fairly special all the same.
“When a lot of people believe, it is incredible what human beings can do,” the coach, Johann van Graan, said. “It’s incredible what we did. I could mention every guy who took the field. They really put their bodies on the line. Munster magic came through today.
“There were a lot of ebbs and swings in that game but we fought our way back into it, the South African added. I think gratitude is the main word. “It’s an honour to coach this team. If you’ve got 23 guys who believe and a management team who believe and a club who believes, then things can come through.”
Brendan Fanning writes for the Sunday Independent