Munster's faith in their fast-improving youngsters was reflected not only in the introduction of 21-year-old halfbacks Craig Casey and Ben Healy for the last quarter of the game, but also in the last 15 minutes when Jack O'Donoghue was introduced for CJ Stander who made way instead of 23-year-old debutant Gavin Coombes.
Johann van Graan and his assistant coaches were rewarded with a strong finish to the game. Healy landed a booming penalty from 55m and Coombes muscled over for his seventh try in his last six games.
But this first experience of the Heineken Champions had been a step up on the Pro14.
“I remember looking up at the clock after 14 minutes and catching my breath, but I got my second wind after that, so I was happy with that. But it was definitely a step up.”
As for the match itself, Coombes said: “Look we obviously spoke about the bonus point during the week and there were opportunities for it, but any win in Europe is massive and with the shorter, more condensed competition this year you have to go out and win every game so we’re happy with that.”
As for his try, when breaking off a maul to plough through the tackles of Wilco Louw and Will Evans, Coombes said: “I got hit hard initially and bounced out of it and a gap opened. I was delighted with it to be honest.”
Lapse of discipline
Harlequins head coach Paul Gustard had plenty of regrets, but conceded that Munster were the better team.
“I think we have made great strides in our discipline over the last few weeks and we are working hard on it. Two or three of those penalties were just daft weren’t they? We gave them a lot of field position, which led to 14 points, which was the difference between the two teams,” he said.
“We are frustrated but I think on the balance of play they were the better team. I thought they defended better than we did, their breakdown was better than ours and so was their set piece. The positives we have to take from that game was our endeavour, our effort was excellent. For all that, they controlled field position better than we did in the second half.”
As for the yellow card decisions, Gustard said: “No. But when you are playing away . . . There was some intervention from the TMO and assistant referees that cost us heavy but we weren’t getting any on our side of the ball. I felt their nine played the ball out of our nine’s hands close to line and they were off-side repeatedly but we didn’t seem to get anything. It is tough but I am not grumbling about that as we conspired to give away needless penalties.
“I am frustrated because we gave them field position. We didn’t manage the field as well as we could have done in the first half, not because of a lack of desire or a lack of want but it was just a bit of execution. To go in 6-0 down when it could have been 7-3 at one stage, if it wasn’t for a forward pass. There were a lot of good things but, ultimately, the overriding feeling is that our discipline and accuracy let us down.”
