Northampton 31

Munster 27

At one point Munster were so far off the pace of this game that the prospect of a bonus point seemed not just unlikely, but fanciful.

And yet as the game headed into injury-time, the away side were camped on the Northampton line with a win as the only item on their agenda. They didn't get it, but they came close enough to restore some of their own confidence that had been shaken so badly by Leinster a week ago.

In the overall scheme of things a bonus point away from home is not the worst result Munster could have come away with, and given that they weren't mapped for much of the contest it will look better as the week goes on. The worrying bit is how they were restricted so effectively by a team with nothing like Munster's experience of this level.

For sure Saints will remember how close they came to getting nothing from this. They had played some irresistible rugby, at times battering the Munster defence with incredible force, and with Shane Geraghty having the game of his life, they were thoroughly deserving winners.

Much had been made of Geraghty's match-up with Ronan O'Gara and the former London Irish player came away well pleased with his efforts. He's looking at a place outside Jonny Wilkinson when England kick off their autumn series. O'Gara was better than he has been but, like a few more of his international colleagues, is only feeling his way back into things.

In the case of Tomas O'Leary that exercise went from slow to turbo in the space of two halves. In the first he spilled more ball than he would in a season as Saints' policy of bombing Munster to death was paying dividends. In the second he came into his own and there is no better scrum-half on the break in these islands.

His rescue try was a glorious effort of pace and power. And how it was needed. Munster's set-piece had let them down at crucial times all evening, and when at last they needed something to go right, it did.

But they had been scrapping from the start and their rusty-looking pack were never able to get any dominance over the home forwards. Eight points down inside the first quarter, they had dragged themselves back into it via a David Wallace try midway through the first half, before O'Gara edged them ahead.

Having done the hard part and unsettled the crowd of 13,550, Munster then suffered serious damage in the last few minutes before the break. It started unhinging in a critical moment when Paul Warwick tried to grubber a ball down the Saints' left wing only to see it blocked by Lee Dickson.

Who knows, had it gone through the gap intended perhaps Munster could have made something of it, but instead Saints used the turnover to launch a series of drives, led in chief by Dylan Hartley whose boiling point is a good few degrees below the average.

You could feel the reaction from the home crowd as at last Northampton got some momentum into their play and forced Munster back. Just when the Reds thought their defence might have earned them a relieving penalty for not releasing, it went against them for hands-in.

And just when they thought it was safe to assume the standard position for the penalty shot, Geraghty tapped and went and was rewarded with five points which he turned into seven.

So with Geraghty's penalty that had brought them back to 14-14 two minutes earlier, and then his sharp thinking for the try, the game had taken one of those dramatic swings that takes something equally dramatic to restore.

The second half was only four minutes old when the premium on that went up again. And while you'd credit Geraghty for making the most of the space that opened up form him, you'd have to question Lifeimi Mafi's role in opening the door in the first place. It was standard stuff: out-half uses a decoy runner on the cutback to see what it might throw up and the Saint couldn't believe his luck.

Neither could Chris Ashton. He dutifully tracked Geraghty for the inside pass and the wing had a clear run to the line for his second try. When Geraghty tapped over the conversion Saints were 28-14 to the good. And for a club that had lost just once here in two seasons, the odds on them losing the plot at that stage were astronomical.

But because it was Munster you couldn't close the book. O'Gara dragged them along with two penalties to close the gap to eight points, and then O'Leary struck off a maul to leave a point in it.

The refereeing of that hectic endgame was beyond Christophe Berdos, and it was beyond Munster too. Put the rematch in round six in your diary.

Scorers -- Northampton: Ashton 2 tries; Geraghty try, 4 pens, 2 con. Munster: Wallace, O'Leary try each; O'Gara 4 pens, con; Warwick drop goal.

Northampton: B Foden; C Ashton, J Clarke, J Downey (C Mayor 67), B Reihana; S Geraghty, L Dickson (A Dickens 70); S Tonga'uiha, D Hartley (capt), S Bonorino (B Mujati 58), C Lawes (I Fernandez Lobbe 67), J Kruger, P Dowson, R Wilson, N Best.

Munster: P Warwick; D Howlett, L Mafi, J de Villiers, K Earls; R O'Gara, T O'Leary; M Horan, J Flannery, T Buckley (J Brugnaut 67), D O'Callaghan, P O'Connell (capt), A Quinlan (D Ryan 65), D Leamy, D Wallace.

Referee: C Berdos (France).

- BRENDAN FANNING at Franklin's Gardens

Sunday Independent