Cardiff not ready to throw in towel
Cardiff Blues boss David Young insists his team will not throw in the towel despite suffering a second successive damaging Heineken Cup home defeat.
The Blues now have a mountain the climb in their quest for a quarter-final place from Pool Four after reigning European champions Munster beat them 22-12 at a rainswept Arms Park.
While Munster equalled Leicester’s tournament record of 11 successive wins, Cardiff were left facing an early exit unless they can turn the tables in next weekend’s return fixture and inflict a first Heineken Cup defeat on the Irish giants in Limerick.
Cardiff were undone by a first-half try from Munster number eight Denis Leamy, while fly-half Ronan O’Gara produced an immaculate goal kicking performance, landing five penalties and a conversion to pass 800 tournament points.
Young said: “It was typical Munster today. You don’t win the Heineken Cup by accident, and they ground out the win.
“We had equal amounts of pressure and territory, but we failed to come away with points at crucial times, whereas they scored a try when we had a player sin-binned.
“We have a huge respect for Munster and we know it will be a hugely formidable task for us next week.
“Losing this game has made our life very difficult, but we will go out with all guns blazing next Saturday. We are not giving up, that is for sure.”
Young highlighted Cardiff’s poor kicking game as a major reason for their defeat, and two penalties in each half from full-back Ben Blair proved insufficient to deny Munster the victory their sizeable travelling army of supporters demanded.
Munster could conceivably progress to the quarter-finals as top seeds given that two of their remaining three games are at home, but rugby director Declan Kidney expects a major challenge from Cardiff in six days’ time.
Kidney said: “This was a great win for us and it was a really tough game, and next week is a long, long way from being a foregone conclusion.
“We are at just the halfway stage of the group, and it could be a case of having to win all six games to come through the pool.”
And O’Gara added: “We never hit the heights of some of our better performances in this tournament, but we have to brave it out and to win away from home by 10 points is hugely satisfying.
“In those conditions, it had to be route one stuff and it was a case of keeping our heads down and working hard. This is a results business, and we have now won three out of three in this group.”
