Munster left with that sinking feeling after losing a titanic battle

Saracens 19 Munster 13Over the course of two good old-fashioned and titanic European arm wrestles, there was little or nothing between them. Indeed the match statistics are almost dead level, with Munster ultra competitive at the breakdown, almost as effective as Saracens on their own ball and defensively almost as impenetrable. It really did, as Rob Penney suggest afterwards, come down to tiny margins.

Losing David Kilcoyne on the morning of the game, albeit after he had succumbed to a tummy bug late on Friday night, really was a killer blow, for in addition to losing the young prop’s ballast with the ball in hand, their scrum increasingly struggled – all the more so when Saracens brought on some heavyweight impact off the bench.

It yielded Saracens six points in the final quarter as, ultimately, with one try apiece, it came down to a kicking duel again between the respective halves, and they had the same number of shots at goal as last week too. But whereas Owen Farrell was three from seven a week ago, he was five from seven here, and whereas Ronan O’Gara was five from five a week ago, he was three from five yesterday.

Munster were undoubtedly discommoded when injury befell Felix Jones yet again; the 22-year-old Luke O’Dea coming on for his Euro debut in what was only his 16th competitive appearance.

Well enough though O’Dea coped, and on moving immediately to fullback Simon Zebo was again excellent under the high ball as well as delivering his customary long punts, within two minutes Saracens struck for their sole seven-pointer of the two matches.

Admittedly, Munster’s sole try, which followed soon after, was off an intercept, which is a graphic illustration of how suffocating this battle was on the tight confines of soccer club Watford’s narrow pitch.

Saracens had three line breaks to Munster’s two, and excellent though Mike Sherry, Peter O’Mahony and co were, in truth Munster rarely looked like opening Saracens up, whether resorting to close-range drives when the rain poured down for the second-half or when moving the ball wide in the face of Saracens’ sharper line speed in defence.

Tried though he might, Casey Laulala couldn’t free his hands in the face of so much double tackling, and to his credit he almost single-handedly upped Munster’s line speed with a huge, big-tackling defensive effort.

Ultra physical hits

A la Clermont, though not Leinster, Saracens pushed hard, with blisteringly quick line speed and ultra physical hits. This was eye-catchingly apparent from the off. O’Gara, cleverly, responded with a little dink over the top (something Leinster might have tried) for Zebo to latch onto it, but Richard Wigglesworth made the sweeping tackle. And from the recycle, as with any other occasion Munster moved the ball through the hands, they ended up in retreat.

By then Owen Farrell had failed to reward an ominous bout of hard, straight running by Sarries when missing a routine drop goal, though he atoned with a 45-metre penalty for hands in a ruck.

O’Gara failed with his first shot at goal from about 40 metres out, but when he went to the air Doug Howlett made the tackle, O’Mahony was quickly in to contest the ball and O’Gara nailed the resulting penalty.

But on foot of losing Jones, waves of hard running testing Munster close in and on the blind side, where Wigglesworth chopped through delightfully for the lively David Strettle to touchdown in a vacant in-goal area. Farrell converted from wide out.

Munster needed a reprieve, and were almost literally handed one. When Saracens renewed the offensive from around half-way, Farrell delayed his intended skip pass to Brad Barritt and somehow didn’t see that the likelier receiver was James Downey. The Munster centre duly grabbed the proverbial present and offloaded when chased down for Howlett to score.

Disrupted rhythm

O’Gara converted to draw the sides level and to further disrupt Saracens’ rhythm, Laulala shot out of the line to utterly nail Chris Ashton and force a spillage. Joel Tomkins did leave Downey for dead in midfield, but after Saracens opted to go to the corner, Laulala made another superb tackle on Tomkins and the half ended with Farrell missing an angled penalty after alert covering by O’Gara and some argy-bargy.

As the rain teemed down at the start of the second half, so both teams went to the air more, and with increasing success. After O’Dea failed to gather a Wigglesworth box kick, Farrell missed another angled penalty but O’Dea atoned with his chase of a Murray box kick, forcing a penalty from Ashton when Downey was first man in and O’Gara pushed Munster in front for the first time. Alas, the last too.

The penalty count turned against them, primarily because Saracens’ scrum gained the upper hand – Mako Vunipola having replaced Rhys Gill at half-time.

A huge scrum enabled Farrell to nail the first of two quick-fire penalties to reward their third quarter dominance.

Munster worked their way downfield through a couple of trademark raking touchfinders by O’Gara, some good mauling and close-in rumbling, although Saracens worked their way out of their own endzone efficiently.

With Will Fraser binned for a high tackle, Munster upped the ante but after one 25 phase drive O’Gara’s straightish 35 metre drop goal was wide as was an ensuing 40 metre penalty before Fraser’s return. They felt like pivotal moments. Instead, Will Fraser returned to win a penalty after Barritt stopped Zebo from breaking out for Farrell to close out the scoring. And their scrum closed out the game.

Scoring sequence: 9 mins Farrell pen 3-0; 17 mins O’Gara pen 3-3; 21 mins Strettle try, Farrell con 10-3; 26 mins Howlett try, O’Gara con 10-10; (half-time 10-10); 51 mins O’Gara pen 10-13; 57 mins Farrell pen 13-13; 60 mins Farrell pen 16-13; 77 mins Farrell pen 19-13. SARACENS: A Goode; C Ashton, J Tomkins, B Barritt, D Strettle; O Farrell, R Wigglesworth; R Gill, S Brits, M Stevens; S Borthwick (capt), M Botha; G Kruis, W Fraser, K Brown. Replacements: M Vunipola for Gill (half-time), J Smit for Brits (60 mins), C Wyles for Goode (61 mins). Not used: P Du Plessis, E Sheriff, E Joubert, N de Kock, C Hodgson. Sin bin: Fraser (62 mins). MUNSTER: F Jones; D Howlett (capt), C Laulala, J Downey, S Zebo; R OGara, C Murray; W du Preez, M Sherry, BJ Botha; Donncha OCallaghan, D Ryan; David OCallaghan, P OMahony, J Coughlan. Replacements: L ODea for Jones (20 mins), P Butler for O’Mahony (67 mins), M Horan for du Preez (71 mins), S Archer for Botha (77 mins). Not used: D Varley, B Holland, D Williams, I Keatley. Referee: Jerome Garces (France).