CROWLEY STARS
Munster on the up but Ulster just edged out
JACK CROWLEY scored a second-half try and kicked the clinching 74th-minute penalty to give Munster a 20-15 URC win over Cardiff at Thomond Park last night.
Ben Thomas and replacement Thomas Young both crossed to give Cardiff a 12-10 lead on the hour mark but they could not avoid a fifth straight league loss.
A lone Crowley penalty had Munster leading 3-0 at half-time, with the hosts frustrated by nine handling errors across the opening 35 minutes.
Munster captain Tadhg Beirne and Thomas swapped tries, with the latter running in a fine intercept effort, before Young profited from John Ryan’s sin-binning to score from a maul.
Player-of-the-match Crowley scrambled over and finished with 15 points, albeit replacement Jacob Beetham’s late penalty gave Cardiff a deserved bonus point.
The result moved Graham Rowntree’s men back above the Stormers into fourth place but Beetham’s long-range kick made sure 12thplaced Cardiff pocketed a point on the road.
Meanwhile, Ulster were unable to hold out in a desperate rearguard action as Stormers came from behind to triumph 13-7 in Cape Town.
A Nick Timoney try meant the visitors led from the seventh until the 74th minute, at which point No8 Evan Roos rewarded his side’s complete dominance in the second half by rounding off a maul.
What the score lacked in artistry it made up for in importance as for all their control after their interval, the 2022 champions wasted chance after chance through self-inflicted errors.
The Stormers’ defence looked heavy legged when it was exposed in the seventh minute by a simple
attack that saw Nathan Doak slip Timoney between two tacklers for an easy run in.
Manie Libbok missed successive penalties and to mirror his difficulties, scrum-half John Cooney followed suit for Ulster despite both his attempts being in very kickable positions.
The visitors had dominated every aspect of the first half but only had a 7-0 lead at the break and when play restarted they came under significant pressure, their work at the breakdown helping to keep the Stormers at bay.
Roos almost finished a sweeping
move but he knocked on inches short due to the attention of Ulster’s effective scramble defence.
The Stormers won a scrum penalty and Libbok was finally off the mark but then a maul that was creeping over the whitewash ended because of a knock-on in the dewy conditions.
As the match entered the final quarter, Ulster were creaking amid relentless pressure with David McCann’s departure to the sin-bin adding to their problems.
The Stormers launched their backline at speed only for yet
another handling error to intervene and they were unable to score a point when McCann was off the pitch.
But the decisive score finally came in the 75th minute when Roos crashed over the line from a line-out maul with Libbok nailing a tricky conversion and then adding an overtime penalty.
Earlier, Connacht dropped out of the play-off places when flanker Alessandro Izekor powered over with just seconds remaining to snatch Benetton a vital 18-14 victory at Stadio Monigo.
Ignacio Mendy also crossed for
Benetton, with Jacob Umaga adding a conversion and two penalties.
Niall Murray and Cian Prendergast scored Connacht’s tries, with Jack Carty converting both.
Scotland wing Kyle Rowe scored a hat-trick of tries as Glasgow climbed into second place in the URC table by blowing away the ill-disciplined Scarlets 45-3 in Llanelli.
The win moved the Warriors above the Bulls and to within five points of leaders Leinster, with five rounds of the regular season to go.