A look through the weekend’s Heineken Cup quarter final stats for the Irish Examiner – words published on Tuesday, April 8th 2014: http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/rugby/munsters-execution-impossible-to-counter-264636.html

For the second successive season Munster remain the last Irish flagbearers in the Heineken Cup. And in its final season, considering Munster’s love affair with the competition, that seems quite appropriate.

Les Toulousains received a sound thrashing at Thomond Park. Only once in their glorious Heineken Cup history have Toulouse ever had more than 47 points entered in the Points Against column, a 1996 drubbing at Wasps (77-17).  That 47 points is the most ever scored by a Munster side in the knockout stages and the most by any side in the knockout phase since Stade Francais scored 48 in a quarter-final against Newcastle in 2005.

What is more incredible is the fact Munster lost their captain and chief chaos creator, Peter O’Mahony so early in the game.  His able deputy, CJ Stander, played just 62 minutes but led Munster in both carries and tackles, taking home the man of the match award on his 24th birthday.

Were Toulouse disinterested? Their excellent 93% tackle rate would say a firm “non”. Where Munster made hay was in their utter refusal to yield easy possession; just four penalties conceded, two dropped balls in 80 minutes along with zero turnovers conceded from rucks and mauls. Execution was all. And the noblemen of Toulouse were led to the guillotine.

Ulster’s performance will live long in the memory but will unfortunately be filed in the folder marked ‘glorious defeat’. A team playing with a man down for 76 minutes, shorn of Rory Best after 12 minutes and Ruan Pienaar for the final 30 (having been markedly less than 100% for most of the previous 50) is not supposed to be still within a drop goal of victory at the final whistle. Yet they had the edge in both possession and territory against one of the richest outfits around (non-French division). Billy Vunipola (13 carries for 66m) and Schalk Brits (8 carries for 90m) had fine games for Saracens while Tommy Bowe’s 13 carries for 75m was a reminder of his talents.

Chris Ashton’s first try showed every part of his game, the wonderful inside running and pace followed by the tendency towards showboating instead of making the kick as easy as possible for Owen Farrell (four missed kicks on the day).

At least Ulster’s players and fans will have found some solace in that glorious defeat. Leinster, however, will have woken up yesterday morning wondering what went wrong. 27 missed tackles would have made it tough against anybody, let alone the defending Heineken Cup champions, with eight misses coming from Leinster’s decorated centres alone. In the Toulon backs Matt Giteau (14 carries for 73 metres; 7 tackles from 7 attempts) and Mathieu Bastareaud (62m from 10 carries; 6 defenders beaten) were immense while in the forwards Juan Smith, Steffon Armitage and Craig Burden made a combined 154 metres from 27 carries.

Toulon might have given up 15 penalties but just one was in their own 22; after all, Leinster were hardly ever there — Matt O’Connor’s charges won just six rucks in the Toulon red zone while Toulon won 35 in Leinster’s. A crumb of comfort? The scoreline could have been a lot worse. Toulon conceded seven turnovers conceded in the Leinster 22 and had nine dropped balls in the match. Small crumbs, indeed.

Credit: All playing stats courtesy of Opta.