Ian Keatley’s six-penalty haul was enough for league leaders Munster to edge out the Newport Gwent Dragons in a hard-fought encounter at Rodney Parade.
VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS: NEWPORT GWENT DRAGONS 14 MUNSTER 18
A stop-start affair in the opening half with neither side able to build a significant number of phases left the scoreline 6-3 at half-time at Rodney Parade.
But a much livelier second period, which included a Dragons try and drop goal and five Ian Keatley penalties, saw Munster tip the balance and claim the spoils with an 18-14 victory.
Jason Tovey opened the home side’s account after 11 minutes and missed a chance six minutes later to extend the margin before Keatley responded with his first shot at goal after 25 minutes to level the sides.
The Welsh out-half stepped up again just before the interval after Munster were penalised for holding on and the Dragons led by three points at the break.
Munster’s best phase of play produced the short range penalty for Keatley in front of the posts, whereas the men of Gwent showed glimpses of attacking threats that would ultimately end in error or were held up by the Munster defence.
Shortly after the restart Mike Sherry went down with an injury to his knee, and in shaking it off he was caught in a defensive line with James Coughlan, who had his own injury woes (eye), outside him affording the Dragons the attacking opportunity to break through with Matthew Pewtner scoring the only try of the game in the far right corner.
With Tovey missing the touchline conversion, the Munstermen were still within reach after 44 minutes.
A subsequent missed penalty from Tovey gave Keatley the chance to reduce the gap to five points when the Welsh region were pinged for not rolling away.
With Sherry and Coughlan replaced by Damien Varley and Barry O’Mahony respectively, Munster were back to full working order before Keith Earls was sin-binned for a high tackle on Pewtner.
Despite being reduced to 14 men, it was actually Munster who picked up the next two scores thanks to the boot of Keatley, and they led for the first time in the game – 12-11.
The hosts were quick to respond and after advancing into the Munster 22 Tovey eyed up the drop goal opportunity to kick his side ahead entering the closing stages.
In a tense and nervy conclusion, Munster rallied impressively to produce two penalty opportunities for Keatley who completed his tally in kicking six out of seven penalties and all of Munster’s points on the night.
South African recruit Gerhard van den Heever, in making his debut for the province, sustained a hand injury, while hooker Sherry, who injured his left knee, will get a scan on Monday.
Giving his reaction after the game, Munster head coach Rob Penney said: “I’m really delighted to get nine points out of the last two weeks, it has been a real bonus for us.
“The lads have worked really hard coming out of Cardiff last week with a six-day turnaround and travel again, and it’s a great credit to the guys to get the job done.
“I think the Dragons had the edge on the scoreboard but they didn’t necessarily have the edge in the game. Our set piece was operating really efficiently, they defended in quite a unique way so it was hard to make some progress at times.
“But once we got our structures right in the second half and were able to get runners in behind their defensive alignment, we started to make some holes and off the back of those holes and pressure we were able to get some penalties.
“Ian Keatley dictated territory beautifully and put himself in position to kick some wonderful goals. We got the decisive penalty from a great scrum and we were pretty confident that he had the distance, and as soon as he hit it he turned and walked away so we were confident that it was going over.”
He added: “It was good to get out of that with Earlsy in good shape and great to get 70 minutes of rugby under his belt. It’s really positive for us leading in to a mammoth few weeks ahead.
“Gerhard’s got a bit of a hand injury which was really unfortunate. He was taken out off the ball and it’s pretty sore for him.
“It was a great debut, and it was really nice to see him put the jersey on and wear it with such dignity at this point of his career, his first start, and we are expecting some lovely things from him.”
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