Glasgow’s three-try burst earns Pro12 title in final against Munster

If you are a subscriber to the idea that the perfect play-off to a league competition features the teams who finished first and second on the table then you were off to a good start at Kingspan Stadium . If you wanted fireworks to attend what has been a great run-in to the finish then you might have been a little disappointed but the 17,057 who turned up on a cold, windy Belfast evening still got value for money.

The mood music in Glasgow all week has been that last season’s defeat by Leinster was a dry run, that they got caught up with the occasion and this time they would settle for just playing the game. As for their opponents, Munster’s mood darkened when they lost both Conor Murray and Peter O’Mahony following last week’s win. It is doubtful if either or both could have swung things their way for this was Glasgow’s time.

From start to finish in this competition Gregor Townsend’s side have played really good rugby. When they have done it at tempo, then it has been irresistible. The pace and accuracy they got into their game in the first half here killed Munster, whose missed tackle stat at the end of the first half was a whopping 16. Hard to put your man down when the ball keeps shifting at speed.

The only area where Munster, who did not play badly, had the upper hand was the set piece and it was not critical. In a nip-and-tuck game it might have had more significance but three tries from Glasgow in the first 32 minutes went well beyond the set piece. By the time they got their first, through Rob Harley, Ian Keatley had missed a penalty and it must have crossed his mind that that another duff day off the tee was looming after last week. So when he was presented with another shot on 24 minutes it may not have been most difficult kick of his career but in the context of the game it was high-pressure stuff, and he delivered. Unfortunately for the fly-half and his team its effect was wiped out before the Munster fans had time to appreciate the impact. It would be that sort of day.

From the restart Glasgow regained possession almost immediately, and a lovely interchange between Henry Pyrgos and Finn Russell put Leone Nakarawa in space. His offload to the excellent DTH Van der Merwe was completed easily and the winger sped tdown the line and score.Typical of the way Glasgow were playing and the conversion for Russell was a formality. Six minutes later he would have the chance to make it three from three.

This time its launchpad came from what had been a promising position for Munster, for whom Paul O’Connell was playing his last game before his expected move to France.

They were within 30 metres of the Glasgow line when Billy Holland offered himself as a carrier only to spill the ball in contact. Glasgow’s modus operandi is to look immediately to counter from gifts like this, which they did. And they did not have to hold on to the ball through too many phases before Stuart Hogg spotted two front- rows – Eusebio Guiñazú and Dave Kilcoyne – defending out wide. He picked on the prop and skated round him to open up the space for Pyrgos to finish.

It was exactly what you want in situations like that: heads-up rugby and a clinical finish. Munster’s response was typical of who they are. The venom they brought to the next five minutes of phase play was first-class. It resulted in a try at last for Andrew Smith after a sequence where Glasgow could easily have lost two men to the bin. Keatley’s conversion left it at 21-10 to Glasgow and Munster had something to aim at in the second half.

What they needed most in that period was to tie Glasgow down to a set-piece battle, at least to get a further toehold in the game. A scrum penalty followed by a penalty at a line-out maul was ideal. Glasgow were sweating, and glad perhaps to concede only three points and no men to the bin when they were done at two scrums five metres from their own line.

If they were getting jumpy about Munster’s momentum then the arrival of the rain would not have helped them. As we saw in Limerick on Thursday night, it is not exactly offloading weather. So t he next time they got into scoring range it would have to involve more grunt. That came on the hour mark when they set up camp close to Munster’s line, and after a raft of close-in attacks, a gap opened for Russell to scamper over. It was not quite game over but it would have taken a collapse from Glasgow to turn it around. Not much chance of that.

Brendan Fanning writes for the Sunday Independent