Persistent wet weather made for a scrappy and forwards-driven affair as Munster made it four wins from four over Benetton Treviso – two in the Champions Cup – this season. Gerhard van den Heever and Francis Saili both touched down for the province with Ian Keatley adding two penalties.
Such were the poor conditions underfoot that even when the ball went wide, the respective back-lines struggled to get any traction as they mounted an attack.
That said, the opening try of the game came from Munster winger Gerhard van den Heever, but not before the province’s pack had steamrolled the Italians back towards their own try line after which the ball was spread wide for the oncoming van den Heever who touched down on 18 minutes
In search of their third consecutive win at Stadio di Monigo, Treviso struck next. Continuing their impressive form at set piece and opting for touch off a scrum penalty, mounting pressure saw the Munster defence hold firm initially and stop Treviso just short of the line.
Illegally so, however, and when awarded another penalty they opted for a scrum from where they pressed hard to take the lead. Number 8 Robert Barbieri touched down with Jayden Hayward adding the extras, making it 7-5 after 27 minutes.
Struggling to find precision as weather conditions failed to improve, unforced errors were the order of the day for both sides and Treviso retained their slender advantage heading for the interval.
The hosts very nearly had a dream start to the second period as Hayward and Ian Keatley gave chase to Treviso ball that had made its way over the Munster whitewash. However, consultation with the TMO confirmed that the Munster out-half had beaten the full-back to the touchdown – no try.
With error-strewn Munster soon going offside, Hayward did eventually punish the province further on 52 minutes, landing a penalty that pushed the Italians out to a 10-5 lead.
Treviso’s aforementioned dream of a first three-in-a-row since October 2011 was now becoming a reality and Munster needed to react. That they did, shoring up the scrum and solid set piece ball became the catalyst for Munster’s second try.
Well-presented ball saw Andrew Conway kick ahead from where Francis Saili gathered and levelled affairs with his second competitive try for Munster.
With the wind just catching Keatley’s attempted conversion, the teams were locked level (10-10) on 58 minutes. It remained a tight and tense affair with Hayward and Keatley trading penalties after 64 and 68 minutes respectively.
Yet, as what seemed like snow began to fall, a rising penalty count began to favour the men in red with Keatley retaking the lead for Munster on 75 minutes after Treviso went off their feet.
From there, despite Dave Kilcoyne finishing out the game in the sin-bin, Anthony Foley’s charges did enough to hold out for a hard fought victory. The hosts’ final play was symptomatic of a scrappy affair in poor conditions as they knocked on in attack.
The narrow win sees Munster return to sixth place in the GUINNESS PRO12 table, however Foley and his players know that this was a very poor performance overall and they were fortunate to prevail after being second best for much of the game.
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