Munster are mauled at the Sportsground

THIS was no fluke. Lady luck played no part. The man in the middle, David Wilkinson, certainly wasn’t a hometown referee.

The atrocious weather conditions – typical Sportsground howling winds and driving rain – didn’t favour the home team. The visitors fielded as close to full strength as possible – they didn’t send a weakened outfit.

And it’s not like there was nothing at stake either. It wasn’t an end-of-season ‘dead rubber’ or an early season ‘sure, it’s okay if we lose, we have the whole campaign to make it up’ type of game.

This was the real deal: Both sides needed a win; the westerners, having lost two festive inter-pros away against Leinster and Ulster, were desperate for one.

It is inescapable: Connacht’s win over Munster on New Year’s Day was their best yet. It’s up there with recent European triumphs over Toulouse and Harlequins, and league wins over Leinster.

It was a measured, clinical and quite ruthless dismantling of mighty Munster by a Connacht outfit sky high on confidence.

You can make no concessions for Connacht and make no excuses for Munster – Pat Lam’s warriors, for at least an hour of the 80 minutes, were by far the better team.

They’ve been better before, and lost. This time they were better and thoroughly deserving of the 24-16 score line.

The heroic performance that produced such an incredible result is made all the more remarkable when you consider Connacht were strugglng in the opening quarter, and trailed 13-0 after just 15 minutes.

Full review in this week’s Connacht Tribune