Champions Cup quarter-final: Bordeaux Bègles 47 Munster 29
There was at least some honour in this quarter-final exit, not least as the Red Army helped to generate another wonderful occasion in this near 35,000 capacity. Nonetheless, Munster’s grand ambitions of negotiating the most difficult route to a final the tournament has ever known were put in perspective by the power, pace, offloading and clinical cutting edge of Union Bordeaux Bègles (UBB).
The dual concern from a Munster perspective was that they might not rescale the heights of that titanic victory over La Rochelle a week previously. After all, Ronan O’Gara’s side were the only prior away winners in the Round of 16 last season, and a week after digging deep to beat the Stormers by a point La Rochelle were soundly knocked out (40-13) a week later in the quarter-finals by Leinster. Besides, even French sides rarely if ever win twice on the road in successive weekends.
In the event, despite stating their ambitious intentions from the off, Munster were just a little off-colour. The knock-ons and misplaced passes were compounded by a seriously malfunctioning lineout. Between UBB’s excellent defence in the air, mistimed lifts, ill-advised calls and wayward throws, Munster lost nine of their 21 lineouts. More than anything, this will make them wonder what might have been, although stand-in head coach Ian Costello didn’t attribute this to the rigours of a week beforehand.
Will Champions Cup blowouts come back to haunt Leinster?
“Genuinely we thought it might be around mental energy and emotionally being at the right pitch. No, it didn’t feel like that at all. It genuinely felt like we just didn’t execute well enough in two areas of our game.
“You can probably get away with one, put two together and we struggled. And then we needed a big start to the second half and we didn’t get it. We left it a little bit too late.
“So I probably don’t if I’m honest, not at this point in time without looking back at it, anyway.”
The other fear was that UBB have been plotting a redemptory quarter-final for a year since losing 42-41 here to Harlequins in a game they really threw away. This was evident in Maxime Lucu, who missed a kickable conversion a year ago, being especially animated. Looking at Tadhg Beirne, he pointed to his crest, which was a tad over dramatic.
At times too, Munster seemed a little too wary of the manifold threats posed by the power of number eight Pete Samu and the midfield duo of Rohan Janse van Rensburg and Yoram Moefana, as well as the pace of Louis Bielle-Biarrey, the roving Damian Penaud and the elusive 19-year-old French under-20 fullback Jon Echegaray. As a consequence, Munster were occasionally a little passive in defence, not to mention 30 missed tackles.
Underlining how much of a step up this tie was for Munster, their mistakes in possession invariably resulted in UBB tries. In a game which had uncanny echoes of UBB’s 43-31 win over Ulster a week previously, once again there was a foreboding sense of inevitability about the outcome when Damian Penaud again opened the scoring in the sixth minute, as he had done a week previously when cutting inside and leave three men in his wake.
That equalled Chris Ashton’s tournament tally of 11 tries in one campaign and here Penaud bettered that record when Matthieu Jalibert Jalibert cushioned his perfectly weighted grubber on the run with his right instep off a scrum strike move. The ball even popped up waist high as if gift-wrapped with a ribbon and Penaud hardly had to break stride.
From the 13th minute onwards, when Penaud came across his wing to grubber for Lucu to finish, Munster were always at least two scores behind, and when trailing 29-3 in the 34th minute it was threatening to become ugly.
Yet, buoyed by Alex Nankivell’s close-range finish in first-half overtime, the faith and belief of their passionate 3,000 supporters never wavered.
Even after two more malfunctions at attacking lineouts and Nankivell’s forward pass inside to Andrew Smith early in the second half, Munster wouldn’t go away. Gavin Coombes made plenty of hard yards, while Tom Farrell, Nankivell, Smith and Thaakir Abrahams all kept running the ball from everywhere, as did Sean O’Brien when brought on. To their credit Munster scored four tries and even trimmed UBB’s lead to eleven points with seven minutes remaining.
Lucu then made a try-saving covering tackle on Thaakir Abrahams before sending Bielle-Biarrey away for the coup de grace, albeit Nika Amashukeli, who is a good referee, allowed Conor Murray to be illegally taken out at the base of a scrum.
As UBB’s attack coach Noel McNamara had indicated, Munster had more rucks, although only by 77 to 51, and furthermore UBB successfully disrupted Munster at the breakdown, forcing nine turnovers to two. Munster also had more possession, carries, metres and passes, and the same amount of line breaks, a dozen apiece.
As McNamara also forecast, UBB had more offloads, if only by 14 to nine, while they also kicked the ball out of hand 33 times, compared to Munster’s 12. Lucu and Jalibert each kicked a dozen times, whereas Craig Casey and Jack Crowley combined had nine kicks out of hand. Hence, UBB had more territory.
Perhaps it would be impossible for such an explosive team like UBB not to have lulls. They now have a home semi-final and so must have a real chance of claiming the club’s first silverware although you would wonder if their dips might yet prove more costly.
Scoring sequence: 6 mins Penaud try 5-0; 10 mins Crowley pen 5-3; 12 mins Jalibert pen 8-3; 13 mins Lucu try, Jalibert con 15-3; 22 mins Echegaray try, Jalibert con 22-3; 33 mins Echegaray try, Jalibert con 29-3; 40 (+ 3) mins Nankivell try, Crowley con 29-10; (half-time 29-10); 51 mins Smith try 29-15; 54 mins Jalibert pen 32-15; 57 mins Lamothe try 37-15; 67 mins Jalibert pen 40-15; 68 mins penalty try 40-22; 73 mins Smyth try, Crowley con 40-29; 78 mins Bielle-Biarrey try, Lucu con 47-29.
Bordeaux Bègles: Jon Echegaray; Damian Penaud, Yoran Moefana, Rohan Janse van Rensburg, Louis Bielle-Biarrey; Matthieu Jalibert, Maxime Lucu (capt); Jefferson Poirot, Maxime Lamothe, Ben Tameifuna; Cyril Cazeaux, Adam Coleman; Mahamadou Diaby, Guido Petti, Peter Samu.
Replacements: Marko Gazotti for Diaby (47 mins), Matis Perchaud for Poirot, Sipili Falatea for Tameifuna (both 55 mins), Pablo Uberti for van Rensburg (56 mins), Pierre Bochaton for Coleman (58 mins), Bastien Vergnes-Taillefer for Samu (both 60 mins), Connor Sa for Lamothe (63 mins), Yann Lesgourgues for Jalibert (68 mins).
Yellow card: Cazeaux (47-57 mins). Echegaray (68-78 mins).
Red card: Cazeaux (76 mins).
Munster: Thaakir Abrahams; Calvin Nash, Tom Farrell, Alex Nankivell, Andrew Smith; Jack Crowley, Craig Casey; Josh Wycherley, Diarmuid Barron, Oli Jager; Jean Kleyn, Tadhg Beirne (capt); Peter O’Mahony, John Hodnett, Gavin Coombes.
Replacements: Niall Scannell for Barron (38 mins), Stephen Archer for Jager, Tom Ahern for (both 49 mins), Seán O’Brien for Nash, Fineen Wycherley for Kleyn (both 59 mins), Alex Kendellen for (63 mins), Conor Murray for Casey (67 mins), Mark Donnelly for Wycherley (71 mins).
Yellow card: Ahern (55-65 mins). Kendellen (65-75 mins).
Referee: Nika Amashukeli (Geo)
