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Bulls become first South African URC team to beat Munster at Thomond Park
By PA
The Vodacom Bulls became the first South African team to win a BKT United Rugby Championship fixture at Thomond Park as they battled past Munster in a 16-13 victory.
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Replacement Keagan Johannes split the posts with a 72nd-minute penalty, which proved to be the only score of the second half.
Marcell Coetzee and Thaakir Abrahams traded tries before Jack Crowley kicked Munster level for half-time at 10-10.
Embrose Papier’s sin-binning was followed by two more penalties from Crowley and Johan Goosen, but it was Johannes’ right boot that ended Munster’s 11-match winning run at home to South African sides.
Despite Craig Casey and Peter O’Mahony being late withdrawals, the hosts got off to a positive start with Crowley landing an eighth-minute penalty.
A sustained Bulls attack following a scrum penalty saw Coetzee crash over on the quarter-hour mark. Goosen converted and then drained a penalty to make it 10-3.
The Munstermen, who had Sean O’Brien to thank for an important interception, made up for an earlier lineout misfire. They drew more penalties before Crowley and Alex Nankivell sent Abrahams over in the left corner.
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Following Crowley’s crisply-struck conversion, Papier earned a 43rd-minute yellow card for offside when Conor Murray tapped a penalty quickly.
However, Goosen soon managed to kick the 14-man Bulls back in front amid heavy rainfall. Crowley hit back to make it 13 points apiece with half-an-hour remaining.
An injury to veteran Munster prop Stephen Archer prompted uncontested scrums, before Johannes missed his first place-kick. He made amends shortly afterwards though, punishing a high tackle.
This was an important result on the road for the Bulls who are within touching distance of a home quarter-final.
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It took a big defensive stand in the dying minutes to see it out, as Munster suffered only their second home URC loss in Limerick this season.
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I really like Munster. They play hard and fair. They are pragmatic. And they are super tough, especially at home. It was a good game today … with one exception.
Uncontested scrums are an abomination. Aside from the mad confusion over whether Munster had to play with 14 players as a result of them being unable contest scrums, the big story of the game was that the Bulls ability to translate scrums into penalties and a high success rate on lineout maul tries was completely nullified.
De-powering the Bulls scrum is not a neutral thing in the game, as that is one of their areas of strength. Specifically, there are few loose-heads that can stand their ground against Wilco Louw. The stupid uncontested scrums are the equivalent of stopping Jonny Wilkinson from taking goal kicks and dropped goals, through no fault of his own. Or stopping a NZ team from passing the ball to Jonah Lomu due to depth issues on the other side. It’s stupid and highly biases against teams that choose set piece oriented game plans.
I thought that Munster looked really good today, including a really delightful game by Conor Murray. But for my money the Bulls looked like a championship team. It’s just possible that Jake has got them in a good groove at the sharp end of the season. Really nice to see.
The ref was good, but he made some really crazy calls. Exhibit A is when a Munster player runs into a stationary Bulls defender, and the call is a penalty for an off-the-ball-tackle. That’s a trust-buster. You really don’t understand the laws if you think that a defender is not allowed to stand wherever they want in open play. Ouch!
Great game. Congrats to Jake and the Bulls.
So players should risk extreme injury unnecessarily? Have you ever played front row? I can tell you it’s not something you can just hop into with a 5 minute demo