Munster find plenty of space and bonus point

HEINEKEN CUP POOL ONE/Benetton Treviso 7 Munster 44:IT WASN'T the game they either expected or planned for but Munster will gratefully take the bonus-point win at Treviso on Saturday at this stage of the Heineken Cup.

Munster maintained their place in the driving seat of Pool One as they enter the final straight of the group stage following this six-try victory in Italy. Victory over Northampton Saints at an expectant Thomond Park on Friday night will now guarantee a home tie in the quarter-finals.

“Yet again qualification comes down to the final game but we’ve become used to that. The good thing is there are still areas of our game to work on but it’s good to go into that match on the back of a big win and even better that such an important game is at home,” said team manager Shaun Payne.

This result at Stadio Comunale di Monigo will have gone some way to making that happen. Pool rivals Perpignan lost here on the opening weekend of the competition, while Northampton failed to take a bonus point after scraping home by three points.

Three tries in the opening 11 minutes ended the tie as a contest and it was only a matter of when, not if, they would wrap up a bonus point. The travelling horde did not have to wait long until Paul Warwick capped an outstanding display with ball in hand with the crucial fourth try six minutes before half-time.

“It was a strange game, we didn’t expect to have so much of the game and so much space for the backs so early on, but that’s the way it went,” said Alan Quinlan. “It’s very unusual at this level to score three tries so early on and then take a bonus point after just half an hour of the game. That happened but the game probably went down hill after that.

“We haven’t played a lot of rugby in recent weeks because of the weather but we had taken a lot of confidence from the win at Perpignan and this was another good performance, all things considered. The backs, especially, were outstanding.”

Fears of ring-rust after three weeks without a game for many of this Munster team were soon dispelled. Doug Howlett, Warwick and Keith Earls were, indeed, outstanding in that opening half an hour that passed in a red blur for the hapless Italians, who looked as though they didn’t know quite what had hit them.

“Almost all of our tries were from long range, which is surprising at this level. All our backs were outstanding, especially Paul Warwick and Keith Earls. He is a young lad who just seems to be growing with every campaign he plays in, ” said Payne.

The forwards too joined in on the act, feeding off the ambition shown by their fleet-footed ball-players among the three-quarters and revelling with the ball in their paws in the Italian sunshine.

Paul O’Connell provided the link between Earls’ early break and Denis Hurley’s first Heineken Cup try. Howlett and Earls combined with devastating effect for the second before O’Callaghan played a delightful one-two with David Wallace to score his first European try for more than three years.

“We didn’t plan to come to Italy and play quite such an open game, we came to do the basics well, like working the lineout. So we were very surprised to find so much space around the field. The outcome was very different to the game we had planned for.”

Munster looked set to bring the records tumbling, leading 30-7 at half-time but they did not have matters all their own way in the second half. Treviso tightened their belts and rolled up their sleeves to make a fist of it, while Munster undoubtedly took their foot off the pedal with a bonus point already in the bag.

For 20 minutes of the second half, Munster looked to be playing with the hand-break on, something they cannot afford to do against the Saints on Friday.

The scrum also came in for some pressure and it was not until Jean de Villiers literally punched a hole in the Treviso defence with a brutally effective hand-off on his opposite number that Earls cantered over for a well-deserved second score and Munster were back on track.

Damien Varley stepped off the bench and thought he had scored his first Heineken Cup try only to be judged to have lost possession as he dived over under a pile of bodies. The hooker, however, was involved in the final play that saw Ryan pounce on De Villiers hopeful pass to score Munster’s sixth.

BENETTON TREVISO: L McLean, A Vilk, A Sgarbi, G Garcia, B de Jager, M Goosen, S Picone, M Rizzo, L Ghiraldini, I Fernandez Rouyet, A Pavanello, C van Zyl, B Vermaak , D Kingi, A Zanni. Replacements: T Botes for Goosen 47 mins, A Allori for Rizzo, P Di Santo for Rouyet, both 55 mins, D Vidal for Ghiraldini 60 mins, E Pavanello for Pavanello 74 mins.

MUNSTER: P Warwick, D Howlett, K Earls, J de Villiers, D Hurley, R O’Gara, T O’Leary, W du Preez, D Fogarty, J Hayes, D O’Callaghan, P O’Connell (capt), A Quinlan, D Wallace, N Ronan. Replacements: J Coughlan for Wallace (half-time), P Stringer for O’Leary, D Varley for D Fogarty, D Ryan for Quinlan (all 60 mins), L Mafi for O’Gara (64 mins), I Dowling for Hurley (66 mins), T Buckley for Du Preez, J Bruqnaut for Hayes (both 72).

Referee: Chris White (England).