Munster tame Leicester at last
The home side's 38-point victory outstripped the 34-point triumph recorded by Ulster in their 41-7 win against the Tigers in Belfast in 2012. With a second away defeat, it now looks like an uphill task for last season's semi-finalists to qualify for the knock-out stages.
The Tigers arrived having won on their two previous visits in the tournament and were looking to do the hat-trick. But the accurate boot of Tyler Bleyendaal and the brilliant breakdown work of Peter O'Mahony's pack, guided the Irish province to a second successive home win in Pool One.
The Tigers were guilty of ill-discipline from start to finish and quickly found themselves 12 points behind as Bleyendaal's deadly accurate boot punished four penalties. Then French referee Romain Poite got fed up with the infringements and sent Ed Slater to the sin-bin.
While the second row forward was off the field, Irish scrumhalf Conor Murray conjured up an opening on the fringe of a ruck with a magical inside pass to Simon Zebo. The fullback went through the gap and crossed at the post for a try, which Bleyendaal improved to make it 19-0 at the break.
Munster's pace, power and precision kept the Tigers on the back foot in the second half and it didn't take long before powerful South African centre Jaco Taute burst over after a great line-out drive in the visitors' 22. Bleyendaal hit the target once again with the conversion but couldn't improve the third try of the game.
This time it was a great break into the Tigers 22 by Darren Sweetnam that paved the way for Taute to score his second try before heading home at the end of his short term contract. That took the score up to 31-0 before Manu Tuilagi followed Slater into the sin-bin for a reckless charge into a ruck.
Taute was only robbed of a hat-trick by an off the ball tackle by Leicester fullback George Worth that earned him the third yellow card of the match and Munster a penalty try. Bleyendaal knocked over the simple conversion to take his match tally to 18 points before heading off with six minutes left to play.
A second bonus-point win keeps Munster on top of the table, a point clear of Glasgow Warriors but with a game in hand.
Scorers:
For Munster:
Tries: Zebo, Taute 2, Penalty try
Cons: Bleyendaal 3
Pens: Bleyendaal 4
For Leicester Tigers: None
Yellow cards: Ed Slater (Leicester Tigers, 32); Manu Tuilagi (Leicester Tigers, 58); George Worth (Leicester Tigers, 70)
Teams:
Munster: 15 Simon Zebo, 14 Darren Sweetnam, 13 Jaco Taute, 12 Rory Scannell, 11 Keith Earls, 10 Tyler Bleyendaal, 9 Conor Murray, 8 Robin Copeland, 7 Tommy O'Donnell, 6 Peter O'Mahony, 5 Billy Holland, 4 Donnacha Ryan, 3 John Ryan, 2 Niall Scannell, 1 Dave Kilcoyne.
Replacements: 16 Rhys Marshall, 17 Thomas Du Toit, 18 Stephen Archer, 19 Jean Kleyn, 20 Jack O'Donoghue, 21 Duncan Williams, 22 Ian Keatley, 23 Andrew Conway.
Leicester Tigers: 15 George Worth, 14 Adam Thompstone, 13 Manu Tuilagi, 12 Owen Williams, 11 Peter Betham, 10 Freddie Burns, 9 Ben Youngs, 8 Lachlan McCaffrey, 7 Brendon O'Connor, 6 Michael Fitzgerald, 5 Graham Kitchener, 4 Ed Slater, 3 Greg Bateman, 2 Tom Youngs, 1 Logovii Mulipola.
Replacements: 16 George McGuigan, 17 Ellis Genge, 18 Pat Cilliers, 19 Luke Hamilton, 20 William Evans, 21 Sam Harrison, 22 Jack Roberts, 23 Tom Brady.
Referee: Romain Poite (France)
Assistant referees: Tual Trainini (France), Stephane Boyer (France)
TMO: Arnaud Blondel (France)
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