South African sortie sets Munster up for URC knockouts

Munster finished their South African tour with a groundbreaking 10 points after picking up a late bonus-point try against the Lions in Johannesburg.

The Lions posed a serious threat after their victory against Leinster last week. While they are usually dominant in the scrum and elusive in the wider channels, they were tamed by Munster, who brought the game back to basics and managed their strategy expertly to return home with a spring in their step.

Munster surged towards last year's URC victory with an away win against the Stormers. They’ve teed themselves up nicely for the final three rounds after more impressive victories on the road in South Africa.

The Lions clearly changed their game plan since last week. They kicked their exits on the pitch, meaning they were either trying to run Munster out of oxygen early in the game or they were worried about the Munster set-piece.

The latter is possibly true as, conversely, Munster were happy to kick the ball off the pitch and manage the pace while attacking the Lions set-pieces.

Munster dealt with the altitude by selecting players to come off the bench with energy when the team would need it most.

Craig Casey was the earliest replacement at 44 minutes for Conor Murray. Others followed soon after, such as Gavin Coombes for Jack O'Donoghue, and Peter O'Mahony gave way to the athletic Thomas Ahern just past the 50-minute mark.

Too often the term 'finishers' is bandied about to almost protect the feelings of the bench players. However, you feel that Munster believed these were the players to finish the game and deal with the pace and pressure of the South African environment.

The basics of getting on the scoreboard early were dependent on Jack Crowley, who revelled in the altitude and