A good night in Cape Town for Munster folks based in that lovely part of the world and better again for those who travelled. Money’s worth, every penny.
unster started the day looking for the win that would secure their ticket to the Heineken Champions Cup next season — once a formality — on top of a route into the URC knockouts that didn’t bring them to an away play date with Leinster.
This bonus point return in stressful circumstances was a great effort, aided and abetted by local Manie Libbok, whose tee technique must be as big a worry for Rassie Erasmus at SA head office as Stormers coach John Dobson. They are now sweating on what happens in Ravenhill on Friday night, where Ulster can keep them out of second place.
This was, effectively, cup rugby: enough bite to keep referee Craig Evans and his team on a state of high alert from the start. By half time, the ref had got through a fair bit of work, doing Munster a favour for not going harder on Calvin Nash for a late tackle on Seabelo Senatla, who earlier had been lucky not to see red for a shoulder-to-chin hit on Peter O’Mahony, who was descending at a rate of knots into the collision.
Evans also had an interesting call to make on Stormers second-row Marvin Orie, who twice in a matter of seconds managed to get his hand all over the face of O’Mahony when the Munster captain got involved in the kind of confrontation that is simply part of his game.
There was no obvious eye contact, but in these instances, the tendency is to crack on at the time and let others review post-match. It looked awful and World Rugby should move to ban the tactic of using an opponent’s face as a springboard for your hand.
In the heel of the hunt, Senatla’s yellow card was a key moment in a gripping first half. Munster had already got a great start when Diarmuid Barron’s try off a maul came back positive after a TMO look-back inside two minutes.
Senatla had hardly got his backside on the naughty step when Barron was over again. Crowley put the penalty to the corner and the Munster forwards fractured their opponents for the hooker to score. But by half-time, Munster were lucky to be level.
Malakai Fekatoa’s time in red has not been a success and his decision to offload to Shane Daly on retreat was disastrous, leading to a five-metre scrum from which a Ruben van Heerden transfer to Frans Malherbe gave the Stormers a try to bring it back to 12-5 to Munster. By then, they were in trouble, reversing and giving away penalties — the opposite of how they had started, with RG Snyman outstanding — and Ruhan Nel’s touchdown coming around the corner was unstoppable. In the circumstances, getting off the field at 12-12 was good going for the away side.
Whatever the plan was at half-time, and what course to take, they opened the second period sailing very close to the wind. Libbok, whose wayward goal-kicking would be critical — hardly a first for him — missed a penalty and then the Stormers were unable to translate two close-in lineout drives into points. It could have been done and dusted before the final quarter.
That should have rung a bell for the locals. You can’t leave Munster unburied and hope they won’t turn it into a lesson on how to win tight games. The confirmation came just before the hour mark with a cracking try from Daly, a great finish under pressure just moments after Ben Healy came on and made a defence-splitting pass.
Even though Steven Kitshoff reduced the gap to two points, Gavin Coombes, who had a smashing second half, scored the bonus try for Munster. Still, Libbok could have changed the game but could only hit the target in injury time when it didn’t matter.
Scorers – Stormers: R Nel 2 tries; F Malherbe, S Kitshoff try each; M Libbok 2 cons. Munster: D Barron 2 tries; S Daly, G Coombes try each; JB Healy 2 cons, J Crowley con.
Stormers: D Willemse; S Hartzenburg, R Nel, D du Plessis, S Senatla (yc 22-32); M Libbok, P de Wet (H Jantjies 53); S Kitshoff (AJ Vermaak 73), J Dweba (JJ Kotze 64), F Malherbe, R van Heerden (E van Rhyn 69), M Orie, W Engelbrecht, H Dayimani, BJ Dixon (E Roos 48)
Munster: M Haley; C Nash, A Frisch, M Fekitoa, S Daly(K Earls 66); J Crowley (B Healy 56), C Murray; J Loughman, D Barron (S Buckley 66), S Archer, J Kleyn (F Wycherley 53; J Kleyn 66)), RG Snyman, P O’Mahony, G Coombes (S Daly 76), A Kendellen (J O’Donoghue 52)
Referee: J Mason (Wales)