Munster vs Toulouse

Munster take on Toulouse this afternoon in their opening game of the European Champions Cup. It's now 13 years since Munster last lifted the famous trophy ...

The message was to keep the ball and be a bit more direct.” The half time talk was all about being patient and sticking to the plan. The French outfit have knocked Munster out of Europe for the last two years in a row, most recently in a dramatic penalty kick shootout at the Aviva Stadium earlier this year.

Following an 18-13 victory for Toulouse over Munster in their Champions Cup fixture, here's our five takeaways from the match at Thomond Park on Sunday.

Spare a thought for Christophe Ridley and his team of match officials. Munster will be furious to lose this match but resigned to the fact they were beaten up a bit up front. At one point, Ridley admitted he couldn’t see the TMO replays and requested guidance from Rowan Kitt. This was a match of fine margins where the smallest of things tended to go the way of Toulouse. Dupont’s ability to break around the sides of rucks or to run onto passes at speed were so far ahead of anyone else you would be forgiven for thinking he was relying on his white Toulouse shirt as camouflage out of the fog. His duel with Romain Ntamack saw the two 10s emerge with honours even, which highlights just how well the Munster pivot is playing.

Here is Gerry Thornley's report from Thomond Park. Thanks for joining us today, tune in next week for more live coverage of the provinces' Champions Cup ...

In the Aviva last season, Munster were knocked out at the quarter-final stage thanks to a dramatic penalty shootout defeat. Casey puts boot to ball early, it doesn’t gain much ground as Toulouse get the ball close to the 22. 19 mins: Beirne is screaming for a penalty after looking for the ball on the deck but he doesn’t get it. Munster weren’t going anywhere, running into a series of brick walls but he dives in off his feet to give away the penalty. Carbery goes with the front-door ball to Haley but he can’t hang on in contact. It was clever from Beirne to pin his man in their and ensure he was killing the ball. Marchand peels off the back of the maul 5m out, pops to Dupont who in turn pops to Tauzin who swings into position late. Ntamack out of nowhere decides to drop back and have a pop at the sticks. They hold the ball up legally in the maul and earn the relieving scrum. Ramos grubbers into the corner and Carbery and then Daly do brilliantly to break and bail Munster out of trouble. Once again, Munster fail to look after the ball as it squirts out of a breakdown. 51 mins: To make matters worse, Toulouse get the penalty at the scrum as Loughman pulls it down.