Rugby

O'Connell's dream left in tatters by ruthless Glasgow attack

Glasgow Warriors celebrate their PRO12 trophy victory over Munster at Belfast's Kingspan Stadium on Saturday night Picture: PA
Glasgow Warriors celebrate their PRO12 trophy victory over Munster at Belfast's Kingspan Stadium on Saturday night Picture: PA Glasgow Warriors celebrate their PRO12 trophy victory over Munster at Belfast's Kingspan Stadium on Saturday night Picture: PA

IT WAS hardly the sort of send-off Munster lock Paul O'Connell had wished for as Glasgow Warriors produced a stunning display to claim the PRO12 trophy with an emphatic victory in the final watched by a near-capacity crowd of 17,057 at a rain-lashed Kingspan Stadium on Saturday.

The Ireland captain is expected to sign a two-year deal with Toulon in the next few days and join the three in-a-row European Club champions after the World Cup.

O'Connell's dream of a winning swansong was left in tatters after Glasgow scored three tries in a devastating opening 32 minutes to build up a seemingly unassailable 21-3 lead. Munster replied with a touchdown of their own before half-time and got the first score of the second half, but those three points proved to be their last of the game.

The 2011 PRO12 champions, missing injured captain Peter O'Mahony and scrum-half Conor Murray, had no answer to Glasgow's sublime pace and accuracy and stand-in skipper Denis Hurley was magnanimous in defeat.

"Glasgow performed so well, they really did beat us off the park in some areas," he admitted.

"They got on the scoreboard very early, their offloading game really killed us at times and their defence very good on top of that and we ended up chasing the game."

Towering Fijian second row Leone Nakawara, who was a deserving recipient of the man-of-the-match award, set up the first two tries for Rob Harley and DTH van der Merwe as Munster trailed 14-3 after 24 minutes, their reply coming from an Ian Keatley penalty.

Then, a wonderful turn of pace from full-back Stuart Hogg enabled him to beat his man and offload to Henry Pyrgos, who ran in under the posts for Finn Russell to add his third conversion before Andrew Smith bundled over in the 37th minute, Keatley's conversion giving Munster some hope going into the interval.

Alan Foley's side had to narrow the gap quickly if they were to have a chance of stopping the Scots, but all they could muster was a Keatley penalty in the 48th minute after Glasgow had defended a couple of line-out mauls.

"We were probably lucky to be (only) 21-10 at half-time and it was important to get the first score of the second half; we took three (points) when we should perhaps have gone for five or seven," said the Munster coach.

"At that stage, the game was in the balance and, if we'd got to within a score, they might have been catchable, but I thought some of their (Glasgow's) offloading and support play was second to none."

Glasgow delivered the coup de grace on the hour when, after 13 phases, fly-half Russell darted through a gap between two Munster men and scored try number four, which he converted to make it 28-13, his replacement Duncan Weir adding a late penalty to finish the scoring.

"Finn's try probably won us the game. We knew (we had to) to get a lead and score tries as we knew the bad weather was to come in," said Glasgow coach Gregor Townsend.

"The trophy, while it’s a fantastic achievement, will actually make us a better team."

Hurley believes his squad will also learn from the experience, chastening though it was.

"It's been a season of lessons learned, but we have a great squad building with lot of new younger lads performing well and a lot of them hadn't played in a final before," he said.

"We've done a lot of growing, we've a new management and we'll take a lot of learning out of this game and we have just got to kick on from here."

Munster coach Foley, when asked about O'Connell's anticipated move to France, refused to be drawn, saying only: "Paul's situation is: he's going on holidays for four weeks and I'm sure he'll make an announcement within those four weeks. I will wait like everyone else."

At that point, probably in anticipation of some more probing on the subject, the Munster communications officer intervened, insisting: "No more questions."

O'Connell's impending departure aside, Foley will have plenty of questions to ponder upon going forward after his side's mauling by a simply irresistible Glasgow team that fully deserved to claim their first PRO12 title.