As a contest the plot thickened the more the match wore on, but as a spectacle it became bogged down after a bright opening. That Young Munster recovered from being on the back foot and trailing 13-3 after the opening half-hour to seriously imperil Con's three-year unbeaten home record says much for their resilience.

This is a younger, remodelled Young Munster side under the more expansive coaching methods of Matt te Pau and John Moloney, but they remain as cussedly awkward and defensively well-drilled as ever.

Ultimately, despite missing the direction and class of Ronan O'Gara, Constitution just about deserved to pull through. Despite Munsters' getting to within a point 12 minutes from the end of normal time, Con spent much of the remaining exchanges inside the Munsters' 22.

Rediscovering their earlier continuity, albeit through the narrower confines of Ultan O'Callaghan's pick-ups from the base of the scrum and close-in driving, they surprised Munsters' five minutes into injury time when Brian O'Meara spun the ball wide for the ever-dangerous Brian Walsh to dance through tired tackling.

The Munsters' full-back Mark Connolly intelligently disobeyed te Pau's call for a team huddle and achieved the more tangible reward of a bonus point by charging down Conor Mahony's conversion attempt. It was the least Munsters' deserved, all the more so as their line-out was shredded by Donnacha O'Callaghan at the front and Mick O'Driscoll, in particular, as he moved up and down the line prolifically. When te Pau called the ball on himself it yielded a three-pointer off the ensuing drive off the tail, whereupon Con doublemarked him at the next throw and O'Driscoll pilfered another throw. In mitigation, it should be stated, Munsters' lost their hooker Bevan Cantrell early on but Con had already laid the platform for a more comfortable win.

Pounding the Munsters' fringe defence into near submission, not for the first time Con were encamped on the visitors' line and were recycling ruck ball inches away from the posts with a try seemingly a formality when O'Meara was scragged into the ruck. Though Munsters' quibble more than most with perceived refereeing injustices, the penalty try looked a fair call by Gareth Doyle.

Thereafter though both sides resorted to attacking closer in, Doyle's refereeing contributing to an increasingly stop-start game after a high tempo beginning. Though Con had the better cutting edge in Walsh and Anthony Horgan, who counterattacked brilliantly in the opening quarter, gradually field position became paramount and Mike Lynch nibbled into the Con lead without Munsters' ever looking like they would score a try.

The Con coach Brian Hickey admitted that the leaders' performance was "below par, very much so. The players themselves are disappointed. It's difficult to keep going because we're now in a position when we play every second week. The advantage of the five or six games in a row at the beginning of the season or the end of the season is that you're getting continuity. So I think it's only natural that teams would be a little bit jittery at the moment. Still, it's nice to get a reminder like that and still come out with four points. I hope we come back stronger for it."

A key element in the Munsters' defence is Lynch, "a super tackling out-half" according to Hickey, a former Munsters' coach. Indeed, watching Lynch a couple of times this season one wonders why the club have pondered this outhalf selection over the years.

Munsters Munsters' tried to play with a fair amount of width on their rarer excursions into enemy territory in the opening half-hour or so and produced some nice moves which stretched but couldn't break the white line. It also made it more difficult to recycle and they had better joy when unleashing the big target runners such as te Pau (who led his team very well) and Muto Ngarimu closer-in.

"It's quite disappointing to be honest," said te Pau. "No-one goes out there to lose. Con are a good side and their continuity in the first half was very good. We just couldn't get into the game but we came back into it in the second-half. We're a young side and we're going to learn a lot from this."

Scoring sequence: 14 minutes: O'Meara penalty, 3-0; 17 minutes: O'Meara penalty, 6-0; 25 minutes: Lynch drop goal, 6-3; 29 minutes: penalty try, O'Meara conversion, 13-3; 40 minutes: Lynch penalty 13-6 (half-time); 44 minutes: Lynch penalty, 13-9; 57 minutes: O'Meara penalty, 16-9; 59 minutes: Lynch penalty 16-12; 68 minutes: Lynch penalty 16-15; 85 minutes: O'Meara penalty 21-15.

CORK CONSTITUTION: B Walsh; N Kenneally, D Dillon, R O'Donovan, A Horgan; C Mahony, B O'Meara; I Murray, F Sheahan, J O'Driscoll, D O'Callaghan, M O'Driscoll, C Taylor, U O'Callaghan, J Murray. Replacements: J Fogarty for Sheahan (42 mins).

YOUNG MUNSTER: M Connolly; C Casey, M Mullins, L Doyle, F Hogan; M Lynch (capt), M Prendergast; T Downes, B Cantrell, M Fitzgerald, C Power, P O'Connell, M Te Pau, M Ngarimu, K Gallagher. Replacements: T Lane for Cantrell (6 mins), J Rose for Gallagher (52 mins), D Reddan for Prendergast (57 mins), M Hough for Downes (80 mins).

Referee: G Doyle (IRFU).