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Leinster batter Munster at Thomond Park to remain undefeated

By PA
Leinster players celebrate their URC round 9 victory over Munster

Leinster claimed the festive derby spoils at a sold-out Thomond Park, winning 28-7 to hand Munster only their second home BKT United Rugby Championship defeat of 2024.

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Sam Prendergast took his chance to impress in the absence of his Ireland fly-half rival Jack Crowley, who missed the derby in line with IRFU player management guidelines.

Fixture
United Rugby Championship
Munster
7 - 28
Full-time
Leinster
All Stats and Data

Player-of-the-match Prendergast slipped through for a 32nd-minute try, adding to an early Luke McGrath effort, to establish a 14-0 half-time lead despite Tommy O’Brien’s yellow card.

The 26,267 crowd watched Tom Ahern and Josh van der Flier swap scores, before captain Caelan Doris piled over with seven minutes remaining to extend Leinster’s winning run this season to 11 games.

Having been involved in a smart initial break involving Jamie Osborne, there was no stopping McGrath in the eighth minute. He sniped over from a ruck with Prendergast converting.

Munster had a purple patch midway through the first half with three tap penalties in quick succession. Skipper Tadhg Beirne was held up after O’Brien was sin binned for repeated team infringements.

Leinster were clinical on the half-hour mark despite being a man down. A bout of forward pressure ended with Prendergast darting in between Tom Farrell and Shane Daly to double their lead.

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Individual errors were proving costly for Munster who were also without the injured Peter O’Mahony and Conor Murray, and both Craig Casey and Jean Kleyn who underwent surgery last week for knee and thigh injuries respectively.

Nonetheless, the leaders’ poor discipline moved the penalty count to 11-3 early on the resumption, and Munster finally took advantage.

The athletic Ahern reached out for the try-line following replacement John Hodnett’s well-timed pass. Billy Burns curled the conversion over.

Leinster managed to quickly silence the home fans, in response. A powerful scrum forced a penalty, and van der Flier crossed from the back of a ruck, allowing Prendergast to make it 21-7.

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Van der Flier and Joe McCarthy stood out during a scrappy finale. A well-supported Doris muscled over for the bonus point try, converted by replacement Ross Byrne.

Replacement Lee Barron was also held up during a strong Leinster finish.


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Comments

1 Comment
R
RedWarrior 56 days ago

That was Munster playing very well (albeit with a weakened team) going out of their skin to get 7. Leinster had a try for 35 disallowed at the death.

Last year Leinster conceded 19 pts per match in the league phase. Half way through this year its 12 pts. Leinster have to play Bulls and Sharks away during the 6N this year. While I expect them to lose, I expect them to be competitive as all players are familiar with the Nienaber defense. Snyman and Barrett will be available too.

With Glasgow and Sharks losing I think Leinster will be able to comfortably ensure home advantage in all URc knock out matches this year.

A lot of talk is of how many Toulouse are scoring. Maybe it should be on how few Leinster are conceding. First major contender clash this year coming soon as La Rochelle Host Leinster. We may get more accurate indications of Leinster's progression then.

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JW 3 hours ago
Where is the new breed of All Black 10?

Players like Prendergast and Finn Smith already have a few seasons at top club level under their belt and are now test players, at an age when NZ players make their debuts in SR.

That’s just a difference in standards. You’re confusing SR for being their local domestic comps, where it’s more accurately comparable to Champions Cup, apart from that teams are happy to throw games as it’s in a bit of a limbo in terms of importance atm.


All these kids have been playing for a comparable NPC team for years now. Sam is no where near ready for tests but he has a great temperament, much like Sextons, that makes it a good choice to speed up his development. He wasn’t even a comparable Super Rugby starter before playing for Ireland, so not a great comparison.


Fin would be much better example, but then England don’t have 3 world class Test tens in front of him (not that I’d put Beauden their but obviously in terms of young NZ players chances, he is). Would he otherwise have debuted at the same age as Fergus Burke (injury and leaving withstanding), around 24, a couple of years later? England also aren’t as pedantic to who they give jerseys to, in NZ a test jersey is very hard earned for the most part.


In general I think the effects are as you say, but the only difference is the money involved, as you yourself said, their paths are just as all over the show being loaned out playing for clubs etc. My solution to that, and what you perceive as the problem, would be to introduce university football that utilitizes the large investment they have into high performance sport.

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Jennifer Ross 5 hours ago
One rule for Europe's copycats, another for the Springboks

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Jennifer Ross 5 hours ago
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