SCARLETS STUNNED
Late penalty denies hosts as teenage Munster ace steals the show
THE Scarlets suffered heartbreak against Munster in their opening game of the season after visiting flyhalf Ben Healy won it with the final kick of the match.
Leigh Halfpenny kicked nine penalties – a Scarlets record for a single game – but it wasn’t enough to prevent Munster escaping from Llanelli on Saturday with a victory.
Halfpenny broke the deadlock in the 18th minute when some over-eager Munster counter-rucking saw players go off their feet on the edge of the 22. The Scarlets full-back does not miss from such areas.
And he doubled the lead just three minutes later.
Jonathan Davies – playing his first Guinness PRO14 game in 17 months – booted a perfectly-weighted kick down into the visitors’ 22. Springbok World Cup-winner Damian de Allende carried it back over his line and, from the ensuing scrum, Munster were again penalised for going off their feet.
Halfpenny made it 6-0 before Munster skipper Peter O’mahony was shown a yellow card for shouldercharging at a breakdown midway through the first half.
The visitors opened the door again minutes later when they dragged down a powerful Scarlets maul. Halfpenny was relentless. 9-0.
Munster landed a counter punch on the half-hour mark when Healy sent Andrew Conway haring up the far touchline. Some interplay with de Allende resulted in Jack O’donoghue going over for the first try of the match. JJ Hanrahan converted.
The Scarlets full-back nailed his fourth penalty of the match after some good work from Werner Kruger at the breakdown in the 35th minute and the hosts took a 12-7 lead in at the break.
Man of the match Halfpenny got the scoreboard moving in the second half when Munster shot themselves in the foot once again, with CJ Stander guilty of not rolling away at a ruck this time.
However, Josh Macleod was penalised at the following kick-off, giving Hanrahan his opportunity to close the deficit and make it 15-10 with half an hour remaining.
Halfpenny’s metronomic right boot continued to do the damage as Munster, inexplicably, gave him three more opportunities to get on the scoreboard. He took each of them to give Glenn Delaney’s side a 24-10 lead with just 15 minutes remaining.
Then came the game’s major talking point.
Munster enjoyed their first real spell of pressure in the Scarlets 22 for a long time and it resulted in centre Chris Farrell barging his way over the line. As he scored, O’mahony dived into the cluster of bodies and, after checking with the television match official, referee Sam Grove-white showed the captain a second yellow card, which made it a red.
Replacement fly-half Ben Healy nailed the conversion to bring the visitors to within seven points, but they would be down to 14 men for the final 11 minutes.
The hosts were given a penalty on halfway and the faultless Halfpenny nailed his record-breaking ninth penalty to restore a 10-point lead before things unravelled.
Healy clipped over a penalty to bring the visitors within striking distance before de Allende found himself carving outside prop Phil Price and racing into the Scarlets 22.
The hosts infringed and Munster kicked to the corner.
A 10-man maul ensued, with replacement hooker Kevin O’byrne burrowing his way over for the visitors’ third try, with Healy converting two minutes from time.
With the scores level, the Scarlets infringed at the kick-off and James Davies was penalised at the breakdown just inside Munster’s half.
Enter 21-year-old Healy, who nailed the kick from inside his own half, into a slight breeze, to win it at the death.