Munster suffered a third European Champions Cup defeat, going down 27-7 to a Stade Francais side that proved too powerful at Stade Jean Bouin. With the hosts leading 10-0 at half-time, it was Munster’s second half performance that was the most disappointing.
VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS: STADE FRANCAIS 27 MUNSTER 7
Despite Stade Francais winger Josaia Raisuqe being red carded just before half-time for making contact with the eye area of CJ Stander, Munster were unable to take advantage of the extra man.
For long periods of the game it was the Paris outfit who dominated both possession and territory, with the visitors unable to apply pressure in an extremely poor collective performance.
Held scoreless until the 74th minute, scrum half Conor Murray’s try was scant consolation near the end of a contest that saw the men in red outmuscled by their French opponents.
The province’s cause was not helped by early injury disruptions with Andrew Conway, BJ Botha and the recently returned Tommy O’Donnell all taken off the first 22 minutes.
Munster showed promise in the opened exchanges with TMO Derek Bevan called on for a possible Ian Keatley try after the out-half followed up his own kick chase in the 12th minute, but the Stade defence thwarted the effort.
Five minutes later, Keatley attempted a penalty kick after the pack secured the advantage off a maul. However, the Dubliner’s long range effort off the tee just dropped left and wide, and similar to the recent trend Munster once again failed to convert an opportunity into points.
Moving into the second quarter it was the hosts who were playing the superior rugby, piling the pressure on the Munster defence and the final eight minutes of the first half proved costly with 10 points conceded.
The line was broken in the 32nd minute when centre Paul Williams found a gap in midfield and ran in under the posts to score the opening try. With Morne Steyn adding the simple conversion, the South African out-half was back on the tee minutes later when the pack secured a scrum penalty outside Munster’s 22 and he followed up with a successful strike.
The opening 40 minutes finished with Raisuqe being sent-off by referee Nigel Owens and Munster were unable to register their first points when Keatley was off target with a long range penalty.
At the start of the second period, the errors continued to mount for Munster and despite the province’s numerical advantage, it was the hosts who set the pace, held the possession and made headway in opposition territory. Munster were unable to get a foothold and Stade extended their lead further with a second Steyn penalty after Robin Copeland was pinged for coming in at the side.
On the hour mark it looked like Munster’s first score was to come with the back-line working an overlap for Rory Scannell to touch down in the corner on his first European start, but the effort was ruled out due to a forward pass.
While Anthony Foley’s men struggled in attack, it was Stade who replied with two converted tries after poor Munster defence and soft tackles allowed the impressive Sekou Macalou and Hugo Bonneval through to score. With ten minutes remaining the reigning French champions led 27-0.
Disappointingly, Murray’s late score – converted by centre Scannell – was all the province could muster as their European challenge for this season petered out in hugely deflating fashion.
Giving his reaction afterwards, Munster head coach Foley said: “Out there (with the red card), you know there’s space there and it’s trying to avail of that space and keep pressure on them. We never managed to get that squeeze on them in the second half and that’s good defence out of them, good control out of them and maybe at times it’s poor discipline out of us.
“It was the same problems again – a lack of control, losing the breakdown, inability to score, putting ourselves under a lot of pressure and you end up conceding those sort of scores. It’s very disappointing.
“Before [the European game in November against) Treviso, we were scoring at a good volume and since Treviso, we’ve struggled to get the scoreboard ticking over.
“It’s something we’ve worked hard on and something we’ve tried to fix, and we haven’t seen it out on the pitch.
The results are the key. Last year, losing to Clermont at home proved key. Losing to Leicester at home has been key this year. The inability to score this year has really hampered us.”
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