Sloppy Munster knocked out in Toulon

Published on Sunday 16 January 2011 20:32

MUNSTER failed to qualify for the quarter-finals of the Heineken Cup for the first time in 13 years after slumping to a 32-16 defeat in Toulon.

Half-backs Jonny Wilkinson and Pierre Mignoni drove Toulon to a 26-9 half-time advantage, with Munster lock Donncha O'Callaghan sin-binned shortly before the break.

Wingers Christian Loamanu and Paul Sackey scored first-half tries at a partisan Stade Felix Mayol, and any hopes of a Munster comeback evaporated when Ronan O'Gara was yellow carded in the 49th minute.

Wilkinson finished with 22 points as the big-spending French outfit reached the knock-out stages in their first season in the competition.

Munster head coach Tony McGahan conceded that a lack of discipline had let his side down. "I'm absolutely shattered to be out of the Heineken Cup at this point in the term, especially after a very disappointing performance," he said.

"I think the first thing was our discipline. Conceding 13 points with two men off the field and a couple of penalties from scrums added to the scoreline but I thought we were very frantic at times, especially in the first half."

In yesterday's other game, London Irish brought their losing run to an end with a deserved 24-12 victory over Ospreys that damages the Welsh team's Heineken Cup ambitions.

Irish went into the game looking to end a run of ten consecutive defeats, their worst in four years, and tries from Sailosi Tagicakibau and Topsy Ojo saw them do so. And there was further bad news for Ospreys and Wales ahead of the Six Nations, with Adam Jones taken off at half-time after suffering what looked like an injury to his left shoulder. collapsed.