Gwent Dragons 8 Munster 24: Munster's hopes of winning the Celtic League survived another 24 hours, but their Heineken Cup campaign hit trouble with an injury to Ronan O'Gara at Rodney Parade last night.
The Ireland outhalf was helped off the field after 35 minutes with a serious-looking knee injury, and Munster's ageing backline showed little to frighten Biarritz ahead of next weekend's European quarter-final in Spain.
Munster coach Alan Gaffney has another 30-something player to call on in Samoan hero Brian Lima, but his side will have to lift their game three gears to turn over the French heavyweights.
A Munster spokesman said it was too early to know if O'Gara's injury would keep him out of the quarter-final, but "it doesn't look too good".
The 16-point victory kept Munster's slim hopes of Celtic League glory alive, but an expected win over Edinburgh tonight will give Neath-Swansea Ospreys the title.
Munster winger John Kelly, who was voted man of the match, said: "We haven't had much luck in Wales lately, so this is a good win, especially given what Wales have been up to lately."
Dragons winger Ben Breeze went close in the opening exchanges before being penalised for trying to sneak closer to the tryline in the tackle, but it was the Munster backline making the early inroads as they ran every scrap of possession - albeit with little imagination.
O'Gara opened the scoring with a ninth-minute penalty before backrower Alan Quinlan was adjudged to have hit the corner flag in touching down. Television replays suggested referee Rob Dickson erred.
Munster centre Mike Mullins was causing problems out wide, but too many promising moves broke down and it was still 3-0 after 20 minutes.
Coach Gaffney's mood went from annoyed to concerned when O'Gara injured his knee as flanker Jamie Ringer collided with it while trying to charge down a clearance kick. There was just time for Sweeney to level the scores with a penalty before the half-time break.
The teams began the second spell as they ended the first - running everything and dropping everything. The stalemate was finally broken in the 57th minute when Quinlan bustled his way over under the posts from close range. Replacement outhalf Paul Burke added the extras, and Munster started twisting the knife, Kelly scooping up a loose pass to scamper over untouched.
Dragons fullback Kevin Morgan touched down after good work from centre Sione Tuipulotu and a weak tackle from Jason Holland, but shortly afterwards fullback Shaun Payne showed great pace to beat Morgan to a Burke grubber kick.
NEWPORT GWENT DRAGONS: K Morgan (D Griffiths 76); G Chapman, P Montgomery (J Bryant 69), S Tuipulotu, B Breeze; C Sweeney, J Ireland; A Black (R Snow 65), S Jones (J Richards 62), R Thomas (C Anthony 65), I Gough, L Charteris (P Sidoli 58), J Ringer, J Forster (capt), M Owen. Scorers: Try K Morgan; Pen C Sweeney.
MUNSTER: S Payne; J Kelly, M Mullins, J Holland, A Horgan (P Devlin 78); R O'Gara (P Burke 36), P Stringer; M Horan (E McGovern 62), F Sheahan, F Roche, D O'Callaghan, T Hogan, A Quinlan, D Wallace (S Keogh 75), J Williams. Scorers: Tries A Quinlan, J Kelly, S Payne; Pen R O'Gara; Cons P Burke 3.
Referee: Rob Dickson (Scotland)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)