Match action
AS pre-season friendlies go, this was one of the more meaningful ones as both sides played with great intensity in their final fixture before the league season starts.
Munster will be one of the better sides to visit Sandy Park this year and they showed their tenacity and strength in depth to score five tries to Exeter’s three.
Despite the excellent entertainment, the teams’ coaching staff will earmark evident failings. Munster gave away needless penalties and some of their kicking was inaccurate while Exeter’s line-out regularly malfunctioned.
However of greater concern to Chiefs will be their failure to take a number of scoring chances and the concession of tries through wayward passing and weak tackling.
Exeter coach Rob Hunter said: “It was a great work-out but we’ve clearly got to tighten up in certain areas. We made a few errors at the end to let them in but overall we are pretty pleased.”
The game’s best player, Calvin Nash took advantage of Exeter’s errors to score two tries with Rory Scannell, Jean Kleyn and Chris Cloete at the forefront of a committed Munster effort.
No.8 Alex Kendellan also looked a fine prospect as did his Exeter counterpart Rus Tuma, who thrilled the crowd of 8,775 with a couple of barnstorming runs.
Tom O’Flaherty and Tom Hendrickson can also be pleased with their performances as Exeter
displayed some enterprise before falling away in the final quarter.
Munster conceded three soft penalties in the opening five minutes to gift the hosts an attacking platform from which their hooker, Jack Innard, forced his way over.
However, the lead was short-lived as Scannell stepped inside Jack Nowell to reward a period of Irish pressure with Ben Healy’s conversion putting his side in front.
Nowell soon made amends by scoring Exeter’s second. Two elusive runs from O’Flaherty put the visitors’ defence on the back foot with Dan Goggin forced into a deliberate knock-on. The centre was yellow-carded and, as he was walking off, Nowell quickly took the penalty to dart over.
Goggin was surprisingly allowed to return after only five minutes in the sin-bin and in time to see team-mate Nash waltz past some weak defending to score an excellent solo try and leave the scores level at 12-12 at the interval.
Exeter dominated the opening ten minutes of the second half before wholesale changes became the order of the day and it was the visitors who were the first to benefit from different personnel.
A well-timed pass from
Healy saw Nash race away before providing Neil Cronin with the scoring pass. Chiefs responded with a close range try from Tuima which Joe Simmonds converted from the touchline.
A passing error from Josh Hodge forced Sam Hildago-Clyne into conceding a yellow card in order to prevent a try and Munster took immediate advantage with tries from Roman Salanda and a second for Nash to seal victory.
Munster coach, Johann van Graan said: “That was a real game of rugby against a team we really respect.
“We dug deep to win it by using 31 players but it’s only pre-season and we won’t get carried away.”