Munster Rugby's second half surge secures Christmas bonus win over Gloucester in Champions Cup

MUNSTER Rugby got back to winning ways in the Investec Champions Cup after securing a precious 31-3 bonus point victory over Gloucester in front of an official attendance of 36,208 at Supervalu Pairc Ui Chaoimh on Saturday night.

The home side, playing their first Champions Cup game on Leeside in 23 years, produced an impressive final quarter showing when backed by a significant wind to dismiss the Cherry and Whites challenge.

The home side had laboured for much of the contest to that point, their caused not helped by a high error count and inability to make the most of several good scoring opportunities.

READ NEXT: Munster Rugby issue squad injury update ahead of crucial Ospreys URC clash

Munster, who led their understrength opponents 7-3 at half-time, thanks to a Dan Kelly try. Gloucester prop Jamal Ford-Robinson was yellow-carded for a dangerous clearout on Jack Crowley during that opening period.

The home side added four more tries after the restart, including three in the final 15 minutes, to break Gloucester's stubborn resistance.

Mike Haley added Munster's second try after 49 minutes, but it was only when Gloucester's Caio James was sent to the sin-bin with 13 minutes left that the floodgates opened and Ruadhan Quinn, Tom Farrell and Tadhg Beirne all took advantage to seal a deserved win. This was an important win for Munster coming just a week after their heavy defeat to Bath at The Rec.

The game saw an impressive Champions Cup debut off the bench in the second half for 30-year-old Young Munster prop Conor Bartley.

The former Castletroy College student, who replaced Michael Ala’alatoa with 10 minutes to play, forced two powerful scrum penalties in just his second appearance overall for the province after making his URC debut against the Scarlets in September.

Afterwards Munster Rugby head coach Clayton McMillan said that while they were happy to pick up five points from the contest, the side had room for improvement. We’re happy to get ourselves on the scoreboard in terms of the European Cup stuff, but I think we'll probably wake up in the morning or even now, and know that we could have been a lot better,” McMillan said.

“I think my overriding sense would be that sometimes your will to do something so well becomes the reason it doesn't [happen].

“There's a lot of care in the team and there's a lot of willingness to want to step up and do something well for the team, but I just feel like we forced a lot today instead of just letting the game come to us.

“The only way you can make yourself feel better is to come out and put in a performance that you can be proud of. And there were lots of things that actually went well today.

“When we did get it right, when our skill execution was here, when our patience was here, we looked good. We’ve just got to build more of those moments. I think we're probably in the habit of stacking a couple of negatives before we get a positive, and we need it to be the other way around.”

Munster Rugby captain Tadhg Beirne said the positive aspect from the game was their ability to claim a maximum five point haul.

“The positive is we got the five points today and that was the target, and we got the job done. "But as I said, we left a lot of points out there, and that's the part that would be a bit frustrating for us in terms of our conversion.

“You know, we weren't very clinical when we had the opportunity to be, and the game could have been over a lot earlier than it was. And that's what we'll be looking at to improve on.

“But we kept them scoreless other than the three points, so that's a big positive too.”

MUNSTER RUGBY: Mike Haley; Shane Daly, Dan Kelly, Alex Nankivell, Ben O’Connor; Jack Crowley, Craig Casey; Michael Milne, Niall Scannell, Michael Ala’alatoa; Jean Kleyn, Tadhg Beirne (capt); Tom Ahern, Jack O’Donoghue, Gavin Coombes. Replacements: Tom Farrell for Kelly (54 mins); Diarmuid Barron for Scannell, Josh Wycherley for Milne, Edwin Edogbo for Kleyn, Ruadhán Quinn for O’Donoghue (all 61 mins); Conor Bartley for Ala’alatoa (70 mins); Paddy Patterson for Casey, JJ Hanrahan for Haley (both 71 mins).

GLOUCESTER: George Barton; Josh Hathaway, Will Knight, Max Knight, Rob Russell; Charlie Atkinson, Mike Austin; Dian Bleuler, Jack Innard, Jamal Ford-Robinson; Cam Jordan, Arthur Clark (capt); Josh Basham, Harry Taylor, Jack Clement. Replacements: Afolabi Fasogbon for Basham (40-42 mins) and for Ford-Robinson (50 mins); Ciarán Knight for Bleuler (50 mins); Danny Eite for Clark, Caio James for Clement, Rhys Price for Austin (all 64 mins); Kealan Freeman Price for Innard, Hugh Bokenham for Jordan, Rhys Price for Austin (all 69 mins).

Referee: Ben Breakspear (Wales).