"Unbelievable atmosphere" – Leinster's Caelan Doris praises record Croke Park crowd in Irish derby win over Munster
10/15/2024 11:18 AM
Leinster Rugby remain at the top of the United Rugby Championship, having secured their fourth successive bonus point victory. The Dubliners battled their way to a 26-12 win over Munster, on a record-breaking derby day at Croke Park.
The early season pacesetters beat their arch rivals in front of a crowd of 80,468, with the capacity crowd officially the biggest ever in league history. Spurred on by the huge attendance, Leinster came flying out of the blocks, crossing to score three times inside the opening 13 minutes and had the four-try bonus point in the bag by half-time.
One of those early touchdowns came from No 8 Caelan Doris who led by example as skipper, and secured himself a Player of the Match performance to boot. Reflecting on the occasion, he said: "It's incredible. It was an unbelievable atmosphere. It's pretty unique having 80,000 filling out this place. There aren't many clubs in world rugby have a fan base that big. So we massively appreciate them, we felt them out there."
The Irish international continued: "We had a fast start. We felt our fans behind us and wanted to put on a good show for them early on. I think we did that. We got two tries in the first 10 minutes. With the quality of Munster, we knew they would fight back and it was more of a battle in the second half definitely."
Leinster are four points clear at the top of the table, with defending champions Glasgow Warriors in second spot after a 33-3 bonus point victory over Zebre Parsma at Scotstoun.
South African high-fliers Emirates Lions and the Vodacom Bulls lie in third and fourth respectively, after they both made it three wins out of three with victories on the road in Wales. The Lions were actually outscored by three tries to two at Rodney Parade, where Wales international Taine Basham forced his way over twice for the Dragons. But five successful kicks at goal saw the Lions come through 23-19.
As for Jake White's Bulls, they raced into a 26-0 lead inside 23 minutes against the Ospreys in Swansea, but then had centre David Kriel red carded early in the second half and were twice reduced to 13 men following further yellow cards. But the team from Pretoria saw the game out to claim a 29-19 bonus point win.
Player of the Match Bulls’ Willie le Roux commented: "What can I say? That's a game of two halves. "We started so well. We played in the right areas, we wanted them to make mistakes and we capitalised on that. Then, second half, red card, yellow card, but we all stuck together. We had a plan and I'm just glad we ground it out."
In the weekend's other Irish interprovincial match, Ulster Rugby overcame Connacht Rugby 32-27 in Belfast, while the Scarlets defeated Cardiff Rugby 25-19 in the Welsh derby at a sold out Arms Park.
Elsewhere, Edinburgh Rugby and Benetton Rugby joined the Scarlets in claiming their first wins of the season, defeating the DHL Stormers (38-7) and the Hollywoodbets Sharks (38-10) respectively. The Stormers are now bottom of the table, with just one win in their first three matches.
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