Damian de Allende gives mighty Munster the edge over Exeter

Perhaps these two-legged knockout ties will catch on. The suspense of a tight, tense and relentlessly physical contest was prolonged into the final minutes in Limerick when it remained impossible to call a winner; at least until Damian de Allende’s try, eight minutes from time, that proved the knockout blow. Munster emerge battered but victorious from a high-class collision between unstoppable force and immovable object, and with a last-eight match against either Ulster or Toulouse looming into view.

Joey Carbery, the Munster and Ireland fly-half, scored 21 of their 26 points but this was fundamentally a defensive masterclass by Johann van Graan’s side and one that evoked memories of the good old days when they won this competition twice in three seasons between 2006 and 2008. It was in particular a mammoth individual display by Peter O’Mahony in the back row, the captain who refused to allow Exeter time to settle at the breakdown and caused a nuisance at their lineout into the bargain.

Exeter huffed and puffed but, as so often this season, failed to find the necessary cutting edge to decisively end the resistance of determined opponents. They may still make the Premiership playoffs but it will take a remarkable recovery - and a rediscovery of that old killer instinct - for this campaign to count as anything other than a desperate disappointment.

It had all began brightly enough for Rob Baxter’s side, too, who went into this second leg with a five-point lead following the first leg at Sandy Park. The visitors spent much of the first quarter with ball in hand, sometimes attempting to run through Munster’s red-brick wall, at other times looking to the fast hands and dancing feet of Sam Maunder and Henry Slade for a touch