Munster show improvement

Munster ... 30 Perpignan ... 21 A little hairy, and a nervy Thomond Park has rarely seemed more subdued, but they got there in the end comfortably enough. At full-strength and at their cohesive best, Munster would probably have put Perpignan away by about 20 points but they are neither at the moment.

On Saturday Munster had about half of a good team in the stand and even though what's left still amounts to a good team, with only three weeks together, it was never going to be vintage Munster.

Twice they had played themselves into a position where, by the standards of the previous three seasons, would have pulled away but both times they invited Perpignan back into the game with handling errors which resulted in 70 and 60 metre breakaway tries.

Take those 14 points away and the scoreline would have more accurately reflected their superiority. The first was the result of Jason Holland riskily trying a difficult offload in the tackle. The second was the product of an elaborate but failed move.

Perhaps such handling errors are an inevitable by-product of Munster's attempt to add another dimension to their game under a new coaching structure. That said, the amount of ball which a fired-up, yet controlled Munster pack supplied their backs, and the generally quick hands of Peter Stringer and Ronan O'Gara, suggests Alan Gaffney will be focusing on their back play.

In fairness, Munster don't have Leinster's pacey cutting edge. But they're pretty good footballers nonetheless and, as ever, when backs and forwards combine collectively - as they did for their opening try - they're hard to stop.

Off one of many lineout feeds from the tail by Alan Quinlan, Munster's control and patience through the ensuing 11 phases was compelling. Perpignan were pushing up so flat on Munster there was simply no way around the outside - as the Catalan side's first turnover try had already demonstrated - so Munster punched away closer in.

Stringer's reverse pass, usually to Frankie Sheahan, worked well and having battered away through the forwards (for variation Holland took it once) O'Gara's flat skip pass took out two defenders for Holland to put John Kelly over. It still wasn't quite what Gaffney was looking for.

"We still lost our way a bit on that. We finished up punching one out, like Gaillimh (Mick Galwey) punched one out, and did well to retain the ball. But retention of the ball and trying to put those sort of phases together is obviously the way we are trying to play, but with a bit more structure."

In general, the forwards deserved a better reward. Jim Williams was, as usual, a standardbearer, while a fired-up Marcus Horan and Anthony Foley had excellent second periods in keeping Munster on the front foot.

Yet those two turnover tries could yet return to haunt Munster and, as with Gloucester, Gaffney's team aren't particularly well placed were final placings with Perpignan to come down to the try tally in the two games. Basically, in the event of the two sides finishing level and Perpignan winning the return match, after the 3-3 try tally here they need only to outscore Munster by one try in the January meeting.

Perpignan, who were missing six frontline players and were coming off a surprise home defeat to Agen, arrived only on the morning of the game after a two-hour delay in the air because of fog. Yet there was enough evidence here to indicate that the return meeting will be hard going if Perpignan are still in contention. And as Gaffney intimated, Perpignan may have been keeping their powder dry to a degree.

"I was a bit surprised toward the end that they weren't trying to win," said Gaffney. "That's not being nasty but at nine behind at three tries each maybe they thought that would do. But they've got a strong set-piece, which we knew. They've got a very good lineout, a very good lineout maul which we didn't concede a lot of penalties to - and they've got a very strong scrum. They've destroyed every scrum they've played against and they have got a lot of gas out wide.

"Manny Edmonds may have had an injury and wasn't involved in the game as he normally would, but he still showed a bit of pace to score that try."

The Munster coach admitted "there were good parts and bad parts" to their performance but given Munster's injuries - Rob Henderson could be out for four months, though the return of Paul O'Connell and Anthony Horgan is about a month away - he is happy with their level of performance. Next week's visit of Caerphilly in the Celtic League "gives us a chance to look at one or two players, but it's still an important game as we want to win and top our pool.

"The players have embraced what we're trying to do and I'm very happy with that. They're trying to get touches on the ball which is something that I'm really trying to promote," he said, and cited the example of Mick Galwey, "who I thought had a great game. That's why he played the 80 minutes. I thought Axel (Foley) had a great game."

Leading Munster out on his 100th appearance for Munster, you'd have expected nothing less from Foley.

Gloucester's high voltage start and 16-try haul has set the tempo in this pool, but as Gaffney said: "All we've got to concentrate on is ourselves. We've got to improve our own performance and the rest will look after itself."

SCORING SEQUENCE

3 mins: O'Gara pen 3-0

8 mins: Couttet try, Bellot con 3-7

15 mins: Kelly try, O'Gara con 10-7

22 mins: Quinlan try, O'Gara con 17-7

27 mins: Edmonds try, Bellot con 17-14

Half-time: Munster 17, Perpignan 14

47 mins: O'Gara pen 20-14

55 mins: Hayes try, O'Gara con 27-14

71 mins: O'Gara pen 30-14

74 mins: Laharrague try, Edmonds con 30-21.

MUNSTER: D Crotty; J Kelly, M Mullins, J Holland, M Lawlor; R O'Gara, P Stringer; M Horan, F Sheahan, J Hayes, M Galwey, M O'Driscoll, J Williams (capt), A Quinlan, A Foley. Replacements: K Keane for Crotty (78 mins).

PERPIGNAN: M Edmonds; P Bomati, N Couttet, C Manas, F Cermeno; B Bellot, J Basset; R Peillard, A Moreno, N Mas, R Alvarez-Kairelis, J Daniell, L Mallier, P Murphy, B Goutta (capt). Replacements: F Rofes for Mallier (46-51 mins, 78 mins), V Debathy for Alvarez-Kairelis (55-64 mins) for Mas (75 mins), S Deroeux for Murphy (64 mins), N Laharrague for Bellot, F Sid for Manas (both 72 mins), D Marty for Bomati (78 mins).

Sinbinned: Peillard (40-50 mins), Daniell (54-64 mins), Moreno (76 mins).

Referee: T Spreadbury (England).