Indiscipline costs Quins as the Thomond Park curse continues

ILL-DISCIPLINED Harlequins threw away a potentially epic victory at Munster in the European Cup as their entire back row were sin-binned. James Chisholm, Will Evans and Alex Dombrandt were all yellow carded at key points as the Londoners succumbed to the Thomond Park continental curse. Munster have only lost five times at home in Europe. Evans’ collapse of a rolling maul led to a crucial penalty try that saw Munster triumph. Gavin Coombes took a late try — his seventh score in eight — JJ Hanrahan kicked two penalties and Ben Healy smashed another from his own half. Marcus Smith missed six points from the tee for Quins, but when Cadan Murley scored and Smith converted they had hope at 13-7 with 24 minutes left. However, although the Irish snuffed out their resistance the English had themselves to blame for poor discipline. ‘Two or three of those cards are just daft,’ said Quins boss Paul Gustard. ‘Two of them led to 14 points, which was the difference. On the balance of play they were the better team, but our effort and endeavour was excellent. We conspired to give away needless penalties — two were late hits which we didn’t need to do.’ Quins trailed 6-0 at half-time when they might have been at least level. In the space of three minutes Smith missed two penalties and Dombrandt had a try disallowed when Murley passed forward in the build-up. Hanrahan kicked two of his three shots, the last missed after Chisholm was sin-binned for a cynical in-at-the-side breakdown penalty. Munster prop Stephen Archer also saw yellow, and Murley wriggled in when he was off, but when Dombrandt was sinbinned for a high, late hit that was the nail in Quins’ coffin.