Irish rugby great Ronan O’Gara landed his second added-time drop-goal in successive European Cup games to give two-time champions Munster a 27-24 victory over Castres on Saturday.
The 34-year-old flyhalf, who had given Munster the win over last season’s finalists Northampton with a drop-goal in the fourth minute of added-time in the first week of action, landed the decisive kick from 30m out to deprive a valiant Castres side of a share of the points.
O’Gara’s heroics in his 99th European Cup appearance sees Munster go second in the group a point behind Welsh side Scarlets, who beat Northampton on Friday, and set things up nicely for their doubleheader next month.
Photo: AFP
“The lads set me up perfectly for the drop-goal,” O’Gara said. “I am happy for the squad and to have played my part in it.”
Elsewhere, the Harlequins superb start to the season continued as they outclassed Gloucester 28-9 to take their winning streak to 12 and their best-ever run since the game turned professional.
Toulouse made it two wins out of two by defeating Connacht away 36-10 in Pool 6, while Leicester kept pace with Clermont in Pool 4 with a 20-9 home win over Ulster.
Munster came off worst in the opening quarter of their match trailing Castres 11-0, including an early try by hooker Brice Mach.
Mach, though, was to go off later in the half adding to the hosts injury worries as international winger Marc Andreu had been taken off with what turned out to be a serious ankle injury which will see him sidelined for up to three months.
Munster fought their way back into the match and 33-year-old former All Black Doug Howlett went over in the 23rd minute. O’Gara converted to make it 11-7.
Castres refreshing attacking style was rattling Munster and it paid off in the 37th minute as a nicely worked passing move saw Pierre-Gilles Lakafia step inside Howlett and touch down — Pierre Bernard converted.
O’Gara, though, added a penalty in added-time to send them in 18-10 down at the break.
Things looked even brighter for Munster four minutes into the second half as Peter O’Mahony ran in to touch down from 25 yards out and with O’Gara adding the conversion there was just a point in it.
Bernard eased the pressure on the hosts with a penalty as Munster kept on making uncharacteristic errors, but O’Gara then created their third try as he blocked Remy Tales’s clearing kick, the ball bounced into Denis Leamy’s arms and he offloaded for Will Chambers to touch down.
O’Gara added a superb conversion to make it 24-21 to Munster with 12 minutes remaining, but they were all square with 10 minutes to go as Bernard added another penalty and it needed O’Gara’s intervention to settle matters.
Earlier, Matthew Morgan hit a long-range penalty with 10 seconds remaining to help the Ospreys claim a dramatic 26-26 draw with Italian club Treviso.
Treviso outscored the Welsh side by three tries to two and will be disappointed not to have come away with a rare victory at continental level.
The hosts scored through prop Michele Rizzo, wing Benjamin da Jager and scrumhalf Tobias Botes with international flyhalf Kristopher Burton kicking 11 points.
Tommy Bowe and Ryan Jones scored the Ospreys’ tries, Dan Biggar booting 13 points, before the 19-year-old Morgan added his late penalty.
In the same Pool 5, twice beaten finalists Biarritz posted a 15-10 victory — only their second win in all competitions this season — over English champions Saracens thanks to tries from Imanol Harinordoquy and Takudzwa Ngwenya.
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