Munster mastered the dreadful weather conditions at Musgrave Park to claim a comfortable victory over Connacht in the Magners League.

After playing with the wind, Munster led 12-0 at the interval with Paul Warwick landing four penalties.

Connacht had the advantage of the elements after half-time but Munster dominated possession and Denis Leamy added a 68th-minute try.

The one downside for Munster was having Ian Dowling stretchered off late on.
Munster took the lead on 11 minutes when former Connacht fly-half Warwick landed a penalty.

Backchat from Jonny O’Connor made Warwick’s task considerably easier in the 17th minute as he slotted another penalty after the Ireland flanker had been further penalised with the ball being moved nearer the Connacht posts.

Intense Munster pressure looked certain to result in a try in the 23rd minute but the Connacht defence held out manfully.
Connacht lost scrum-half Ofisa Treviranus because of injury on 27 minutes with Conor McPhillips introduced.

Warwick slotted his third successful penalty on 36 minutes after David Gannon had been yellow carded for persistent infringements. 

Munster’s lead was 12-0 on 39 minutes with Warwick again on target.

Daniel Riordan’s run did threaten the Munster defence in first-half injury-time but the home team held out to keep Connacht scoreless in the first half.

Connacht needed a score soon after the break but all they had to show in the 10 minutes after half-time was another break by Riordan which was eventually snuffed out by the Munster defence.

The Munster pack’s “stick-it-up-your-jumper” approach meant Connacht were starved of possession and unable to take advantage of the gale force wind advantage.

Connacht weren’t helped by a couple of debatable refereeing decisions including when O’Connor looked to have a clear run to the Munster line on the hour, only for a penalty to be awarded to the home side.

Munster’s victory was assured when Leamy ran in his try in the 68th minute after Tony Buckley’s drive and off-load.

Wing Dowling was stretchered off late in the game with what appeared to be a knee injury.

John Kelly received a big reception from the Musgrave Park crowd after his late substitution in his final appearance for Munster.

Connacht produced late pressure but the Munster defence held firm to keep their opponents scoreless.

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Munster: D Hurley; J Kelly, K Lewis, L Mafi, I Dowling; P Warwick, P Stringer; F Pucciariello, F Sheahan, T Buckley, D O’Callaghan, D Ryan, D Leamy, N Ronan, A Foley.
Replacements: G Hurley for Kelly (80), B Murphy for Dowling (75), M Horan for Pucciariello (73), J Coughlan for Ronan (80).
Not Used: J Flannery, M O’Driscoll, R O’Gara.

Connacht: G Duffy, D Yapp, D Riordan, A Wynne, O Treviranus, A Dunne, C O’Loughlin; B Wilkinson, A Flavin, R Loughrey, M Swift, D Gannon, M McCarthy, J O’Connor, J Muldoon.
Replacements: B McGovern for Loughney (71), A Browne for Swift (58), A Farley for Gannon (44), C Rigney for Muldoon (40), C McPhillips for Treviranus 26.
Not used: P Durcan, J Fogarty.

Connacht captain Andrew Farley on Tuesday praised his team for putting up a “massive effort” against South Africa, despite going down 3-18 to the Springboks at the Sportsground in Galway.

The Irish side will take heart from a game that was a World Cup warm-up match for the Boks and a pre-season outing for the home side.

Connacht were more than a match for a below par Bok side, keeping the tourists to single figures on the scoreboard till the final 15 minutes.

In fact Connacht were trailing just 3-8 and in with a chance of a real upset, before a late Jacques Cronjé try sealed the game for the Boks.

The Irish provincial side, expecting a fierce physical confrontation from the South Africans, displayed real courage to keep in touch with the ‘mighty’ Boks on the scoreboard for most of the match.

“We knew the physicality from South Africa would be massive and we knew we had to match it up front right away and we did that in the game,” Farley said.

The Connacht forwards may have been under pressure in the scrums, but they contested very well in the line-outs, disrupting the Springboks’ ball, and also contested the breakdown.

The fiery approach of the home team paid off and the Boks failed to find any sort of rhythm.

“We knew we had a really difficult job ahead of us and I’d really like to thank my boys for a hard-fought effort throughout match,” Farley said.

The game may not have been pretty, but the men from Galway put in a great performance to keep the Boks down to just a 3-0 lead at half-time.

“We knew we had done a massive job in the first half holding them down to three points,” said Farley.

“We knew they would come out firing after half-time, so we knew what we had to do was weather the storm for the next ten minutes - which we didn’t do unfortunately and that’s what let them into the game.

“All we had to do [to keep the score down] was continue our hard work in defence that shut them out of the first half.”

The side more than met their own expectations in the pre-season clash, as they produced a really good display against the Springboks.

“It was a very good build-up [to the season] for us. With a fixture like South Africa, just after a very hard pre-season, doing well was a massive goal that we all looked forward to,” said Farley.