{"id":489606,"date":"2025-10-10T23:59:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T23:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/489606\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T23:59:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T23:59:19","slug":"munster-retain-unbeaten-urc-status-after-pipping-edinburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/489606\/","title":{"rendered":"Munster retain unbeaten URC status after pipping Edinburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"

Munster made it three victories from three games played in this season\u2019s United Rugby Championship (URC) when they clinched a 20-19 bonus-point win against Edinburgh in Cork on Friday.<\/b><\/p>\n

As the scoreline suggests, this result could have gone either way but the hosts got the rub of the green in the end as they outscored Edinburgh four tries to three.<\/p>\n

Michael Milne led the way with a brace for the hosts while Andrew Smith and Fineen Wycherley also crossed the whitewash.<\/p>\n

For Edinburgh<\/a>, whose discipline let them down badly as they received four yellow cards, Ewan Ashman, Ben Vellacott and Darcy Graham scored tries while Ben Healy added two conversions.<\/p>\n

Munster<\/a> made an excellent start when Smith crossed for the opening try as early as the first minute. This, after the Irish province caught the visitors napping by taking a quick lineout inside their half and the ball was shifted to Calvin Nash, who hoofed it upfield.<\/p>\n

Smith gave chase and when Graham failed to gather the bouncing ball close to his try-line, the Munster flyer pounced to cross for the opening try.<\/p>\n

The Scottish capital outfit did not take long to respond as five minutes later Ashman dotted down under a mass of bodies after a lineout drive deep inside Munster territory.<\/p>\n

And in the 15th minute, Edinburgh were rewarded with another try when Vellacott sniped around a ruck deep inside Munster territory before crossing for his side\u2019s second five-pointer.<\/p>\n

Things then went pear-shaped for the visitors when Glen Young and D\u2019arcy Rae were both yellow carded in quick succession, inside the closing stages of the half.<\/p>\n

Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and snubbed Springbok star as rampant Stormers nil Scarlets<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Thanks to their numerical advantage, Munster were soon rewarded when Milne scored his first try from close range which meant the match was evenly poised with Edinburgh holding a 12-10 lead at half-time.<\/p>\n

Despite that late score from Munster, the visitors were fastest out of the blocks in the second half and they extended their lead in style when Graham gathered a teasing cross-field kick from James Lang inside the home side\u2019s 22 before outpacing the cover defence on his way over the try-line.<\/p>\n

However, Edinburgh were reduced to 14 men for the third time when Freddy Douglas was also yellow carded for a professional foul on defence in the 53rd minute. Five minutes later, Tom Farrell put Dan Kelly in the clear with a deft offload but he was brought to ground deep inside Edinburgh\u2019s 22, before the ball was recycled quickly and Milne barged over from close range for his second five-pointer.<\/p>\n

That meant Munster were trailing Edinburgh by four points but they received another boost in the 69th minute when Magnus Bradbury was sin-binned for a croc roll on Lee Barron.<\/p>\n

It was only a matter of time before Munster would be rewarded and that happened three minutes after Bradbury\u2019s departure when Wycherley crossed for what proved to be the match-winning try.<\/p>\n

The teams<\/p>\n

Munster:<\/b> 15 Mike Haley, 14 Calvin Nash, 13 Tom Farrell, 12 Se\u00e1n O\u2019Brien, 11 Andrew Smith, 10 JJ Hanrahan, 9 Paddy Patterson, 8 Gavin Coombes, 7 Ruadh\u00e1n Quinn, 6 Jack O\u2019Donoghue, 5 Fineen Wycherley, 4 Jean Kleyn, 3 Oli Jager, 2 Diarmuid Barron (c), 1 Michael Milne
Replacements:<\/b> 16 Lee Barron, 17 Josh Wycherley, 18 John Ryan, 19 Edwin Edogbo, 20 Brian Gleeson, 21 Ethan Coughlan, 22 Tony Butler, 23 Dan Kelly<\/p>\n

Edinburgh:<\/b> 15 Wes Goosen, 14 Darcy Graham, 13 Piers O\u2019Conor, 12 James Lang, 11 Duhan van der Merwe, 10 Ben Healy, 9 Ben Vellacott, 8 Magnus Bradbury (c), 7 Dylan Richardson, 6 Liam McConnell, 5 Sam Skinner, 4 Marshall Sykes, 3 D\u2019arcy Rae, 2 Ewan Ashman, 1 Pierre Schoeman
Replacements:<\/b> 16 Paddy Harrison, 17 Boan Venter, 18 Paul Hill, 19 Glen Young, 20 Freddy Douglas, 21 Ben Muncaster, 22 Charlie Shiel, 23 Harry Paterson<\/p>\n

Referee:<\/b> Ben Whitehouse (WRU)
Assistant Referees:<\/b> Robbie Jenkinson (IRFU), Jack MacNeice (IRFU)
TMO:<\/b> Keith David (WRU)<\/p>\n

READ MORE: British and Irish Lions to offer \u2018unprecedented behind-the-scenes access\u2019 as new feature film of Australia tour revealed<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Munster made it three victories from three games played in this season\u2019s United Rugby Championship (URC) when they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,225,12760,12,712,16,15,4510],"class_list":{"0":"post-489606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-home-page","12":"tag-munster","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-united-rugby-championship"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115352592529734017","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}