Munster v Leinster | Highlights | Round 9 | URC 2024/25

Last year played in a monsoon, very different tonight as Sam Prendergast on his first visit to Thornburn Park at senior level with Leinster gets this underway, how will he cope with the rarefied air of this derby fixture at Christmas time? Around the front they come from Josh van der Vleer to Kelleher once more, Luke McGrath. Frenzied attack from Leinster now as they look to pummel that Munster line. Van der Vleer on the charge again, oh there's space there the gap opens up and through goes Luke McGrath, 52nd try and it's not taken Leinster nine minutes to register the opening score of the night at Thornburn Park, he's always alert, always sniping. Luke McGrath 52 tries in 220 appearances, the seventh highest try score in Leinster It's tight, it's close but up go the flags, it sneaks in through that blue wall, Scannell makes a metre or two, Condallon again he's under pressure as the same player Caelan Dorris again, just delays things for a fraction, it's marginal this way and that way brilliant drive, very close not quite enough, Coughlin now has got options. Ahern is driven back by three Leinster players, guarding that try line like their lives depend on it, they're going to have to deal with 14 for the next 10 minutes, who has he picked out? Is it Roman Kelleher? James Ryan I think, James Ryan has gone, he's on, is it? Execution here to find that little gap, there's the try line, the ball is if not on it, seriously close, inches only from Andrew Porter I think, and then there's a flurry of bodies and there's the ball been lifted there by Caelan Dorris and Leinster drive for that line again, it won't quite get there, they'll have to go again and now they spin it out to Prendergast and he'll back himself and Sam Prendergast marks his first Leinster Munster derby with a try, they left it into the forwards but once they rolled it out to the back line, Sam Prendergast spotted the gap and needed no second invitation, there's the instruction, Prendergast duly follows and sends it up into the air, O'Brien underneath it with Healy, big scrap forward and that will bring us to the end of a pulsating, breathless, frenetic, frantic 40 minutes of inter-provincial derby action at Doman Park in Limerick in which the rugby in the opening 40 minutes was frantic and frenetic and not without its errors, particularly it's Peacetown from both sides, but a captivating and enthralling watch, is it to be a tale of two halves or a Munster derby, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again, third time of asking, look at that, the side taken on by Kandel and the ball is there for Coughlin, Leinster poised to spring again, Hobnob gets it away and it hurt, reaches, grasps, surges for the line and listen to the noise in Doman Park, Munster simply had to score and they do, where's the ball in the middle of all this, Josh Van Der Vleer, hot eyes only for the ball and over he goes for Leinster's third try, the simple task, so here they come, the blue tidal wave, there is Scott and he gets it away to his captain, that's the bonus point try, it's just Munster drained of energy, just tired, weary legs, now Leinster are just coming in waves now, there's space out wide, tackle now or release, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll pinch it back from Munster and that will do, into touch it goes from Tommy O'Brien, job done for Leinster, it is nine wins out of nine in the URC, 11 on the bounce, Sam Prendergast, man of the match, shoulders dead new in this fixture.