POWER TOUL
French cracks roll back the years as they bag Euro victory over Reds
TOULOUSE:
BITTERLY disappointed Munster coach Johann van Graan admitted he couldn’t ask for much more from his men after Toulon sent Munster crashing out of the Champions Cup.
His players were massively improved on last week’s dismal PRO14 final showing against Leinster but not even four tries – with two apiece from Keith Earls and Gavin Coombes – were enough to oust the fourtime winners.
Van Graan (below) said: “I am incredibly proud of the lads today. We gave it our best short and we literally came up short by one try.
“I am really happy about the performance. Everyone gave it their best shot.”
Van Graan praised the impact of Springbok World Cup winner Damian de Allende, who was key to both of Earls’ tries in the opening half.
“I thought he had a very good game. I thought he really showed his worth today.
“He found a bit of space in the first half and the game had so many swings and roundabouts. We’d like to get the ball in his hands as much as we can and we didn’t in the second half.”
Van Graan felt that a key moment came in the final quarter when they had to settle for three points from a JJ Hanrahan penalty after a through-the-legs pass from Earls went forward as he tried to put Andrew Conway over in the right corner. “We went for the try, on the forward pass, I think it was from Keith to Andrew and we got three points.
Hopefully we would have got seven there.
“I think that was a big swing there because there were a lot of seven pointers. But give credit where credit is due, well done to Toulouse,” added van Graan.
Former All Black World Cup winner Jerome Kaino believed the key to Toulon’s success lay in the way they responded just after the interval.
Munster led 16-9 at the break but Toulouse hit back on the resumption before halfbacks Romain Ntamack and Antoine Dupont inspired them to pull away in the final quarter of a classic encounter which produced four tries for each team.
“For us after half time we had to make sure we started well and we did. We managed to score off the bat. Munster started to get momentum at the end of that first half but we responded.”
Leinster looked comfortable going into the break but Toulouse hit back straight after the restart with a superb ninephase move which ended with an excellent dink from Ntamack and his former French U-20 World Cup winning teammate Matthis Lebel supplied the finish in the left corner.
Ntamack then landed the difficult conversion to tie the game 16-16.
The Munster response was excellent and after winning a penalty deep inside the Toulouse 22, they were rewarded for their ambition when Gavin Coombes got ovet.
The teams were level going into the final quarter but Antoine Dupont took over, starting and finishing the move for the try of the match. Any hope of a Munster revival died when Dupont raced through for his second try three minutes from time, with Coombes getting a late consolation try.