Cardiff Blues 12 Munster 22: Leamy leads the way as champions set record winning ugly

Donncha O'Callaghan was standing there in the line-out with nothing concealing his privates but the briefest of briefs. The second row looked completely baffled when the referee stopped the game and demanded he put his shorts back on. Had Christophe Berdos failed to notice that he and his Munster teammates had just been working their damned pants off?

Nobody else could have been in any doubt as by that late stage they were well on their way to an 11th win on the bounce in the competition, matching Leicester's record. Their sixth in a row on the road set a mark of its own. Rather like O'Callaghan, it was not pretty, but boy was it impressive.

Put simply, when the sun is away, the Munstermen play - or more to the point they stop their opposition from playing. The Blues adopted a rather dimwitted game plan that seemed to centre around kicking possession away and a long way from the end were reduced to a frustrated rabble. Their European aspirations are now surely over. In contrast, with another quarter-final now all but a certainty, those of the defending champions are as high as ever.

On dank days like yesterday they always find a way to win, even when they are palpably not at their best. Their match-winners were the usual suspects; a back-row who believe that giving a millimetre is a cardinal sin and half-backs who understand all that is sacred in snatching yards. Of the five, Denis Leamy was marginally the pick and it was the No 8's first-half try which tipped the scales.

Up until this half-hour pile over, the home side had been dominating, with their pack the aggressors. A couple of Ben Blair penalties took them six clear and when the Italian prop Frederico Pucciariello was sent to the sin-bin for planting his knee in the back of Scott Morgan, Munster's first European defeat in more than a year looked on. But it quickly looked off again as the Blues contrived to "lose" the next 10 minutes 3-0 to a Ronan O'Gara penalty.

Unsurprisingly the visitors were to show no such generosity when Mr Berdos afforded them the numerical supremacy as he somewhat unfairly showed Martyn Williams yellow for a supposed high tackle. Slowly, but inevitably, Munster moved it up until Leamy crashed over from a maul to grab the lead.

O'Gara lengthened it with the conversion and a penalty and although the Blues came out fast and hard to allow Blair to close the deficit to 13-12, they could not sustain the necessary pace or control.

Instead, Nicky Robinson set about playing a whole series of high balls that fell, and played, into Munster's hands. With Leamy and Alan Quinlan assuming complete control, O'Gara did what he does - three more penalties. Game over.

"This is a results business," said O'Gara. "Whatever it takes." The uglier the better, it seems. The Blues will not be relishing Saturday's rematch in Limerick.

Cardiff Blues: Penalties Blair 4. Munster: Try Leamy; Conversion O'Gara; Penalties O'Gara 5.

Cardiff Blues: B Blair; T Shanklin, J Robinson, M Stcherbina, C Czekaj; N Robinson (N Macleod, 78), M Phillips; G Jenkins (J Yapp, 41), R Thomas, T Filise, D Jones (B Davies, 21-28), J Goode (B Davies, 61), S Morgan (M Lewis, 76), M Williams, X Rush.

Munster: S Payne; T O'Leary, L Mafi, T Halstead, I Dowling; R O'Gara, P Stringer; F Pucciariello (D Hurley, 60) F Sheahan, J Hayes, D O'Callaghan, P O'Connell, A Quinlan (D Hurley, 12-22), D Wallace, D Leamy.

Referee: C Berdos (France).