United Rugby Championship: Munster hammer disappointing Dragons, while Leinster move back top

Munster moved up to third position in the United Rugby Championship after producing a dominant display to defeat the Dragons 64-3 at Thomond Park.

The Irish province were excellent throughout and had the bonus-point wrapped up before the break as Craig Casey, who went over twice, Jack O’Donoghue and Chris Cloete touched down for a 28-3 advantage.

Johann van Graan’s men could then enjoy themselves in the second period as Simon Zebo, Chris Farrell, Shane Daly, John Hodnett, O’Donoghue and Cloete all crossed the whitewash.

They are still nine points behind arch rivals and league leaders Leinster in the URC, but the Limerick outfit do have a game in hand.

Ollie Griffiths got over the ball to break up Munster’s early momentum, but scrum-half Casey duly crossed in the ninth minute, breaking to the blindside of a maul and shrugging off Davies’ attempted tackle.

The Dragons made good ground in response, Sam Davies knocking over a close-range penalty before their own indiscipline brought Munster back into try-scoring range.

Casey squeezed in under Joe Maksymiw to complete his brace in the 22nd minute, and it got worse for the Dragons straight from the restart.

O’Donoghue evaded Aneurin Owen’s tap tackle to finish off a terrific team score from deep, with Jack Crowley converting to make it 21-3.

As the interval approached, Crowley’s inviting pass had John Ryan charging up into the visitors’ 22. Farrell then injected further pace, freeing up flanker Cloete to go over out wide.

Crowley nailed the difficult conversion for good measure, the Dragons’ cause not helped by a miscued line-out and centre Owen’s injury-enforced departure.

A forward pass denied Mike Haley a try on the resumption, but Zebo had a simple run-in after Casey’s