Gallant Munster go down fighting in an epic rollercoaster from start to finish

Clermont 16 Munster 10: Scarcely a quiet moment, nor a dull one, and by the end scarcely a dry eye in Munster's ranks. On the scale of great French-Irish collisions in the Heineken Cup, this was right up there; an epic rollercoaster from first minute to last, and played out amid the riotous colour and din generated by the Yellow and Red Armies.

Unlike Six Nations games, all of them wore their colours and were all in situ long before kick-off, with the Munster hordes particularly keen to check out Paul O’Connell’s well-being.

All the odds were, as is usually the case on these grand occasions, stacked against a young, redeveloping Munster team. Clermont, the 1/8 favourites, not only had five times the fans, but had five times the budget and by the end had made five times as many replacements up front.

Even one of Munster's two totems, their captain and the daddy of their pack, Paul O'Connell had been laid low all week by a groin injury which made him doubtful in his own mind up until Friday night that he would be able to play. He had one ball thrown to him in the first-half yet his presence was invaluable and he had warmed up and loosened up sufficiently to lead an early second-half charge.

Future generation
Alongside him was the future generation, David Kilcoyne, Mike Sherry, Peter O'Mahony and Tommy O'Donnell, all having blinders and bar Sherry of the pack were not only still standing but still, improbably, fighting for what would have been a stunning win.

Led by Julien Bonnaire with his lineout work, carries, tackles and smarts, Clermont are a superb team. Aside from a slicker lineout and more potent scrum, (although there was huge merit in Munster's resistance here) Clermont are the best breakdown team in French rugby by a long way, their accuracy, commitment and intensity to rucking New Zealand-like and reflecting their hardy Bay of Plenty ex-number eight coach Vern Cotter.

Munster, so effective at sniffing turnovers, choke tackles or steals, were for once unable to stem the tide.

A key difference was the ballast of Clermont’s huge, predatory wingers Napolioni Nalaga and Sivetini Sivivatu, whose roving commissions saw them pop all across the line and in the former’s case, deliver their early try in response to a fine Ronan O’Gara penalty which rewarded an early line-out drive.

Many teams would have been blown out the gate after Parra made it 13-3 following a ferocious lineout maul which excited Les Jaunards’ supporters as much as the Nalaga try, but Munster scrambled for their lives, and kept having a go when they could, releasing Keith Earls up the right for a kick and chase and pounding on the Clermont line on half-time.

Even after another Parra penalty, Munster were like dogs with a bone.

Distributed majesticallyy
They couldn't manufacture one line break, so O'Gara twice deftly went to the corners and then, distributing the ball majestically as well, rewarded a strong Felix Jones carry with a trademark, exquisite grubber for Denis Hurley to score. He even tagged on an angled conversion to make it a one-score game. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

You could smell Clermont’s fear as Parra missed a penalty, both Brock James and Lee Byrne made curious endgame decisions and Munster twice came calling with close-range lineouts. Yet all the bravery of their performance merely made the defeat crueller, for they had chances to win it, not least when Nalaga dallied almost fatefully but Casey Laulala couldn’t quite manage the touchdown.

Instead, Damien Varley slightly overcooked a throw and their chance ended when O'Connell's flat pass to release those outside for one last foray was crassly and wrongly adjudged forward. While there would always be relief in avoiding Wayne Barnes, and overall Munster could not have too many complaints over the years about Nigel Owens – who refereed all their three knock-out games in their triumphant 2008 campaign – perhaps this was a case of familiarity being unhelpful, particularly his most recent experience with them.

Owens cannot have felt entirely comfortable with the fall-out from the Munster-Leinster campaign, and specifically the controversial non-citing of O’Connell and the pathetic, populist demonisation of Ireland’s greatest lock for an accident that was, after all, not even penalised at the time, and it was not his fault that the system wrongly didn’t cite him.

The penalty against O'Mahony which Parra kicked for 10-3 rightly bemused the flanker, who was clearly on his feet, the one against O'Donnell for not releasing the ball when seemingly not held looked wrong, Jamie Cudmore should have been yellow carded, Owens completely missed Bonnaire stealing the ball illegally under the Clermont posts on half-time, and even after the fateful forward pass against O'Connell, David Kilcoyne was adamant that Clement Ric had placed his hand on the ground before Munster were penalised.

Worst thing
It's easy to blame the referee, and Owens is a good one, yet he was by some distance the worst thing about this game. It also says everything about Munster's obduracy that Clermont ended both halves by kicking the ball off the paddock.

The demonising of O'Connell, particularly in a two-page spread at the front of Midi Olimpique last Monday also served to make him a predictable pantomine villain, with the Yellow Army responding like a Shakespearian mob. But the groin injury he suffered in training last Monday so limited his contribution in the first-half especially that they had scant opportunity to boo him.

In the last month, Munster have come a long way, with O'Connell's return the catalyst. The trick will be to maintain the progression next season. But, in time-honoured fashion, there was certainly no shame in this defeat. Poignant, epic, great game and wonderful occasion.
Scoring sequence: 6 mins : O'Gara pen 0-3; 9 mins: Nalaga try, Parra con 7-3; 14 mins: Parra pen 10-3; 17 mins: Parra pen 13-3; (half-time 13-3); 48 mins: Parra pen 16-3; 60 mins: Hurley try, O'Gara con 16-10.
ASM CLERMONT AUVERGNE: Lee Byrne; Sitiveni Sivivatu, Regan King, Wesley Fofana, Napolioni Nalaga; Brock James, Morgan Parra; Thomas Domingo, Benjamin Kayser, Davit Zirakashvili, Jamie Cudmore, Nathan Hines, Julien Bonnaire (capt), Julien Bardy, D Chouly. Replacements: Alexandre Lapandry for Bardy (57 mins), Vincent Debaty for Domingo (62 mins), Noa Nakaitaci for King (64 mins), Ti'i Paulo for Kayser (69 mins), Clement Ric for Zirakashvili (78 mins). Not used: Ludovic Radosavljevic, Jean-Marcel Buttin.
MUNSTER: Felix Jones; Keith Earls, Casey Laulala, James Downey, Simon Zebo; Ronan O'Gara, Conor Murray; Dave Kilcoyne, Mike Sherry, BJ Botha, Donnacha Ryan, Paul O'Connell (capt), Peter O'Mahony, Tommy O'Donnell, James Coughlan. Replacements: Denis Hurley for Earls (51 mins), Damien Varley for Sherry (57 mins). Not used: Wian Du Preez, John Ryan, Billy Holland, Paddy Butler, Cathal Sheridan, Ian Keatley.
Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales)