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Munster send defending champs crashing out of cup

Defending champions Wasps crashed out of the European Cup on Saturday when they slumped to a 19-3 defeat at 2006 winners Munster in the pouring rain at Limerick.

Munster topped Pool 5 and made sure of their place in the quarter-finals along with triple champions Toulouse, Perpignan, Saracens and London Irish.

But Wasps, who had former England skipper Lawrence Dallaglio sin-binned in a tense clash at Thomond Park, saw even their slim hopes of squeezing into the last eight as a best runner-up crushed when Clermont ran in six tries to beat hapless Llanelli 41-0 to snatch second place.

Munster, who have only lost once at their Irish stronghold in the European Cup, mastered the windswept conditions much better than Wasps.

Ronan O'Gara kicked three penalties to Danny Cipriani's one successful attempt to give Munster a 9-3 lead at the break.

Dallaglio's ill-timed hands in the ruck in front of the posts sent him to the sin bin and gave O'Gara the chance land another penalty to make the score 12-3.

It also meant Wasps lost their grip on a possible crucial losing bonus point.

The Irishmen then hammered the final nail in Wasps' coffin when Denis Leamy scored the only try of the game in the 76th minute.

After 20 phases of punishing forward attrition, O'Gara broke through a gap in the wilting Wasps defense to release Leamy who dived over for his ninth career try in the European Cup.

Toulouse moved effortlessly into the quarter-finals with an easy 34-10 victory over Edinburgh.

They will be the only side from their daunting Pool 6 to progress to the knockout stages as Leinster failed to get the win they required at two-time champions Leicester, Brian O'Driscoll's men losing 25-9.

Toulouse had the match wrapped up at half-time thanks to two Vincent Clerc tries. Edinburgh threatened to score a try towards the end of the first period but squandered their opportunity when a slack pass was picked up by Florian Fritz who ran 70m to touch down.

Leicester were surprisingly easy winners over Leinster despite having two players -- Julian White and Andy Goode -- sinbinned.

Leinster could only garner three penalties and were finished off when Ben Herring went over for their third try.

London Irish and Perpignan joined Saracens in the quarter-finals after beating Pool 1 rivals Treviso and Newport-Gwent Dragons respectively.

London Irish top the group on 24 points and will have a home tie in the knock-out phase.

The English club beat Treviso 24-11, Peter Hewat scoring a brace of tries and two conversions with Peter Richards and Tomas de Vedia also pitching in with five-pointers.

Perpignan scored an emphatic 25-0 away win over Newport-Gwent Dragons thanks largely to a brace of tries from center pairing Nicolas Grandeclaude and David Marty either side of half-time.
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