Munster claim bragging rights over 14-man Leinster

Munster handed Leinster only their second PRO14 defeat of the season when they beat their Irish rivals 26-17 in a hard-fought encounter at Thomond Park on Saturday.

The match was marred by several off-the-ball incidents and Leinster were under the cosh from the 32nd minute when James Lowe was red carded for upending Andrew Conway in an aerial challenge.

Prior to that, Leinster were also reduced to 14 men on two separate occasions after their props, Cian Healy and Tadhg Furlong, were sent to the sin bin for illegal hits on Conor Murray and Chris Cloete.

Both sides scored two tries apiece with Cloete and Keith Earls crossing the whitewash for Munster and Joey Carbery contributed 14 points courtesy of four penalties and a conversion, and Tyler Bleyendaal also slotted a conversion. For Leinster, James Tracy and Max Deegan scored tries with Johnny Sexton adding a conversion and a penalty and Ciaran Frawley also succeeded with a conversion.

Despite their poor discipline, Leinster were competitive for long periods but if truth be told, this match was won and lost during the first half when Munster held a slight edge, especially up front.

Munster boxed clever from the outset and kept play restricted mostly to the forwards during the opening period. And although Leinster met the challenge head on, the home side won most of the collisions.

Munster’s dominance gave them a 13-3 lead at the interval thanks to excellent goalkicking from Carbery and Cloete’s try off a rolling maul. But despite their numerical disadvantage, Leinster did not surrender and they struck back via Tracy’s try – scored in similar fashion to Cloete’s – shortly after the restart.

The game opened up in the second half, but with Leinster reduced to 14 men, they were always playing catch up and Munster sealed their win late on when Earls intercepted the ball deep inside Munster territory and raced away before dotting down under Leinster’s posts.

The result is a significant one for Munster as it is their first win over Leinster since December 2016.

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In other PRO14 matches, Edinburgh secured the 1872 Cup thanks to a 16-8 victory over Glasgow Warriors at Scotstoun while Cardiff Blues claimed an emphatic 34-5 triumph over the Scarlets in Llanelli and Benetton beat Zebre 28-10 in Treviso.