Gavin Coombes grabs two tries to rescue Munster against Dragons in Cork
Munster's Gavin Coombes grabbed two tries. Picture: INPHO/James Crombie
Gavin Coombes came off the bench to score a brace of tries to rescue victory from the jaws of defeat for Munster in the URC clash against a stubborn Dragons side at Virgin Media Park on Friday evening.
There was considerable interest in how the young back row trio of Seán Edogbo, Ruadhán Quinn and Brian Gleeson would fare and individually they can be delighted with how they played, with debutant Edogbo being the pick of the bunch with his all-action display.
Tinus de Beer capitalised on the Dragon’s fast start by slotting an impressive long-range penalty in the tricky conditions in the 10th minute.
In the 17th minute they exploited some sloppy play from Tony Butler, who kicked it straight out on the full when he himself had played the ball back into his own 22, as they went down the line and after forcing a number of penalties their maul eventually cracked the Munster pack with hooker Brodie Coghlan diving over to score.
From the restart Dragons openside Harry Beddall was guilty of tackling Thaakir Abrahams in the air and was yellow-carded.
Despite the numerical advantage it was the Welsh side who continued to dominate, with de Beer kicking another penalty in the 29th minute and two minutes later they had a try disallowed in what was a huge let-off for Munster.
What could have been a huge 0-20 deficit was suddenly just a six-point gap when Jean Kleyn battered his way over from close range after considerable pressure on the Dragons line, to leave the score at 7-13 at half time.
With the wind at their backs Munster would have been confident of wrestling control of the tie but in the 53rd minute de Beer rocked Musgrave Park by brilliantly collecting his own up and under, stepping two defenders and popping to right wing David Richards to score.
Gavin Coombes replaced the injured Kleyn in the 54th minute and within three minutes he made a huge impact when he burrowed over from close range to give Munster a lifeline.
In the 64th minute the big Skibbereen man did it again, after himself and Edogbo had both been inches short in the preceding phases, and Butler’s successful conversion made it a one-point game.
Munster engineered a penalty under the Dragons posts in the 75th minute and took the easy decision to take the points to win the game thanks to Butler’s boot.
T Butler (1 pen, 2 cons), G Coombes (2 tries) J Kleyn (1 try).
T de Beer (1 pen, 2 cons), B Coghlan, D Richards (1 try each)
M Haley; T Abrahams, D Kelly, A Nankivell, S Daly; T Butler, E Coughlan; J Loughman, D Barron (c), A Ala'alatoa; J Kleyn, F Wycherley; S Edogbo, R Quinn, B Gleeson.
D Kilgallen for A Nankivell (42), J Wycherley, O Jager and E O’Connell for J Loughman, M Ala’alatoa and F Wycherley (49), G Coombes for J Kleyn (54), J O’Donoghue for B Gleeson (60), P Patterson for E Coughlan (70), L Barron for D Barron (75).
A O’Brien (jc); D Richards, F Inisi, A Owen, R Dyer; T de Beer, C Hope; R Martinez, B Coghlan, R Hunt; L Douglas, B Carter (jc); H Keddie, H Beddall, A Wainwright.
S Davies for L Douglas (50), C Evans for T de Beer (58), S Lewis-Hughes for H Keddle (60), O Burrows for B Coghlan (65), R Williams for C Hope (66), J Morris and C Dlamini for R Martinez and R Hunt (75), H Ackerman for H Beddall (79).
Hollie Davidson (SRU).
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