Munster forced to roll up the sleeves against dogged Connacht

A dogfight was what Connacht wanted and a dogfight is what they gave Munster at the Sportsground on Saturday. Despite the handsome three wins which preceded this one, Munster have had to roll their sleeves up on a fair few occasions during their 17-match winning streak against the westerners and once more they got down and dirty and did enough to win.

Unlike the American Olympic mentality, winning isn't everything to Munster but it's still very much their primary aim when they go onto a rugby pitch. "We're trying to do three things," explained Declan Kidney, "we're trying to win, we're trying to find form, and we're trying to enjoy ourselves. Perhaps we're not getting all three done in equal measure."

Note the order though, and when asked what were the positives arising from this latest victory, Kidney merely said pointedly: "we won." That in turn said plenty about the general stodginess of the performance and paucity of creativity.

They were 13-3 adrift by the 25th minute and ultimately outscored their hosts by 20-0 thereafter. Yet, akin to their opening night win at Ravenhill, Munster had to settle for working themselves into field-goal range in a tryless second-half for Jeremy Staunton to land five penalties.

Significantly their sole try came at the apex of their display when finally getting something of their quick tempo, rucking game together, the score coming from a rare excursion into fifth phase. Admittedly the soft, wet and blustery conditions were not ideal, and though Peter Clohessy and John Hayes made some good yardage for much of the time Munster made an unusually high rate of handling errors in contact with a sodden ball, and didn't clear Connacht bodies out of the way for Peter Stringer to move the ball on.

Endeavouring to broaden their first-team base, the Munster brains trust had made six changes but this only served to confirm that the summer exodus has, temporarily anyhow, left them short of cover at hooker and in the back-row. As it turned out, Staunton was a little unlucky to be given this one.

There were snatches of his exceptional running talent, he took the ball up well and made one searing break which was lost for support but in the circumstances perhaps didn't give Munster the control that the absent Ronan O'Gara might have.

But six penalties out of six, with just one missed touchline conversion into the wind, suggested work well done on the training ground and it was his snappy transfer which enabled Jason Holland to score their pivotal try. In the heel of the hunt though, Munster aren't creating anything like the openings of this time a year ago.

Kidney made the valid point that when teams play back-to-back matches in eight days usually it's the losing team which learns more from the first game, a theory also borne out by events at Ravenhill on Friday night. Further evidence came within the second minute with what was clearly a classic case of homework well done in the video room and on the training ground.

Munster's debutante 22-year-old ex-Newcastle flanker Ed Thorpe had spilled Eric Elwood's kick-off and Staunton had missed a tackle on the impressive Tim Allnutt to give Connacht a scrum platform inside the 22. Shane Stephens took the first phase ball back to his pack and from the recycle Elwood, in what looked a pre-planned move, chipped over the advancing red line to a curiously vacant full-back slot, Crotty having moved up and wide. Elwood's nearest challenger to the touchdown under the posts was Nigel Carolan but the old dog was having none of it and converted his own score.

Buoyed by that, the Connacht pack took the game to their visitors with the wind, and Elwood, whose line-licking was first-rate, landed a couple more penalties for a 13-3 lead after 25 minutes. Yet oddly, given that start, the outhalf's play became more hurried, and his handling and leading of a flat Connacht line was poor, with Stephens strangely under used save as a decoy.

They might also have been better advised to resort to the trademark pick and go forward drives which took them to within inches of the Munster line at 13-20 while Hayes was in the sin bin.

Not that Elwood could be blamed solely for what their coach Steph Nel rightly called "frantic" play. "I just felt that we were rushing it when we had great opportunities to score tries. We tried to run a couple of balls back and again, at a vital stage, we gave away two lineout balls which cost us six points."

In this Connacht were unlucky, losing first Junior Charlie at halftime (their third captaincy casualty of the season) and then hooker Marnus Uijs to flu. "It's becoming very difficult," said a frustrated Nel. "The closer it gets the harder it becomes to accept defeat and I think we honestly threw this one away."

Kidney made the observation that with more self-belief Connacht could have made Munster's plight worse in the first half. "It wouldn't surprise me if they beat somebody (in the interpros) and I'm just glad it wasn't us." Munster would not be blase about four successive wins he said, and with good reason. Another win in the all-ticket showdown with Ulster in Musgrave Park on Friday will earn a third successive Guinness Interprovincial title.