BLUES MAKE AN ED START
Champs continue to Byrne up league
Munster 6 Leinster 13
defence this time out as they produced tackle after tackle to keep their line intact.
And they will be expected to complete a clean sweep of festive derbies when they go fully loaded against injurystricken Connacht at the RDS next weekend.
Both sides may have been without their frontline World Cup stars but the capacity crowd of 26,267 were still treated to a cracking contest on a perfect night for rugby in Limerick.
Leinster, backed by the strong breeze, drew first blood when an excellent field position was set up by a grubber down the left by Ross Byrne. Munster failed to clear their lines and then late replacement scrum-half Rowan Osborne, Conor O’brien and Ross Byrne combined to send James Lowe through.
He was nabbed close to the line but a couple of recycles later saw prop Ed Byrne squeeze over for the try which Ross Byrne converted.
Byrne landed his first penalty after 23 minutes after Chris Cloete was pinged for going off his feet and the out-half made no mistake from 20 metres.
Byrne extended the lead to 13-0 six minutes from the break when another penalty before Munster finally mounted their first serious attack of the clash.
A blockdown by Munster scrum-half and former Leinster player Nick Mccarthy on Byrne gave them good possession and eventually led to JJ Hanrahan making it 13-3 at the interval.
Hanrahan cut the gap to seven five minutes after the restart after incessant pressure but, remarkably, that was the final score of the match.
Not even the introduction of Carbery could ignite Munster’s challenge and while they enjoyed plenty of possession they could not break down a superb Leinster defence where Will Connors, Scott Fardy and Caelan Doris got in some magnificent tackles to keep their line intact to the end, with Munster turning over a fivemetre lineout in the final play to sum up their night.
No.8 Caelan Doris reflected: “It took the full 80 minutes, and went down to the final play.
“We were on the backfoot for a lot of it but there was a huge effort from the lads.” MUNSTER: TEAM: