Munster win scrappy affair with Castres

Editor

Munster returned to the Pool 2 summit of the Champions Cup after they beat Castres 30-5 in a hard-fought clash at Thomond Park on Sunday.

It wasn’t pretty but Johann van Graan’s team got the four points to climb above Gloucester by three points with three rounds still to play.

Rory Scannell, CJ Stander and JJ Hanrahan scored tries for Munster while Martin Laveau responded late on for the visitors, who stay in third.

It was a first-half low on real scoring chances as despite Munster dominating both territory and possession, they only carded six points.

They opened the scoring on seven minutes when a spell of pressure led to Castres offending at the ruck, Hanrahan did the rest off the tee. But Munster could not add to that early penalty as periods of ball were ended with an overthrow and knock-on, which halted their attacks.

It did become 6-0 on 20 minutes however as a dominant Munster scrum won one of several penalties, with Hanrahan duly slotting the three.

There was little else to report at Thomond Park though and it would have been very pleasing for Castres that they were just six points adrift.

That all changed three minutes into the second 40 when Conor Murray’s offload saw centre Scannell crash over for a welcome seven points.

Castres did have two chances to strike back soon after, first Benjamin Urdapilleta’s penalty was wide but with Murray knocking on, they had an attacking scrum five metres out. That however came to nothing as Peter O’Mahony stripped possession and Murray then cleared.

Munster made the French pay for wasting those chances too with Hanrahan’s third penalty on 58 minutes nudging the Irish side 16-0 to the good.

Murray would again provide the assist for Munster’s second try of the afternoon as his snipe was followed by an offload to a rampaging Stander. And with Hanrahan finishing off for his side’s third crossing after 76 minutes, the race was on to claim the try bonus-point in Limerick.

But it was Castres who finished the stronger, as with Conway in the sin-bin for an early tackle, they crossed for a consolation through Laveau.

The scorers:

For Munster:
Tries: R Scannell, Stander, Hanrahan
Cons: Hanrahan 3
Pens: Hanrahan 3
Yellow Card: Conway

For Castres:
Try: Laveau

Munster: 15 Mike Haley, 14 Andrew Conway, 13 Sam Arnold, 12 Rory Scannell, 11 Keith Earls, 10 JJ Hanrahan, 9 Conor Murray, 8 CJ Stander, 7 Chris Cloete, 6 Peter O’Mahony (c), 5 Billy Holland, 4 Tadhg Beirne, 3 John Ryan, 2 Niall Scannell, 1 Dave Kilcoyne
Replacements:
16 Kevin O’Byrne, 17 Jeremy Loughman, 18 Ciaran Parker, 19 Fineen Wycherley, 20 Arno Botha, 21 Alby Mathewson, 22 Tyler Bleyendaal, 23 Jaco Taute

Castres: 15 Scott Spedding, 14 Armand Batlle, 13 Thomas Combezou, 12 Florian Vialelle, 11 Taylor Paris, 10 Benjamin Urdapilleta, 9 Ludovic Radosavljevic, 8 Alex Tulou, 7 Kevin Gimeno, 6 Mathieu Babillot (c), 5 Thibault Lassalle, 4 Loic Jacquet, 3 Daniel Kotze, 2 Jody Jenneker, 1 Antoine Tichit
Replacements:
16 Kevin Firmin, 17 Paea Fa’anunu, 18 Marc Clerc, 19 Christophe Samson, 20 Yannick Caballero, 21 Julien Caminati, 22 Martin Laveau, 23 Rory Kockott

Referee: JP Doyle (England)
Assistant referees: Tom Foley (England), Paul Dix (England)
Television match official: David Grashoff (England)