IT WAS hard, desperately hard, as Munster came from behind to snatch only their second win of the season, Ronan O’Gara the hero when he dropped a goal with the last move of the match after Dan Parks, his opposite number, had appeared to have snatched victory with a penalty seconds earlier.

If the Irish thought that their star-studded line-up would find it easy against a Scottish outfit that had finished second from bottom last season, Glasgow had other ideas, not only holding the lead for most of the match but playing most of the rugby.

In what was one of the more unlikely statistics of the season, Munster had gone into this game behind Glasgow in the Celtic League. Everybody always knew this was a sporting anomaly directly related to the decision to hold back the Ireland internationals and nothing to do with the real quality of the side, a much more reliable guide being the previous week’s win over Llanelli Scarlets, marking the return of the national players and winning ways at the same time.

Glasgow, in complete contrast, had picked up a couple of early wins, riding their luck to defeat the Borders and Edinburgh but coming off the back of a thrashing away to the Neath-Swansea Ospreys last week. Not that they showed any sign of any adverse reaction to that, an early blast of action keeping the ball away from Munster and earning an early three points from the boot of Parks, the Scotland fly-half.

They nearly grabbed and early try too, Christian Cullen just getting across to pull down Sean Lamont a couple of feet short of the line. Although the home backs were making ground with their intricate moves, Munster were also making good ground with their more direct style and soon levelled the score, O’Gara notching the penalty points after lock Andy Hall was involved in a needless piece of foul play after Munster had knocked on.

The riposte was superb, Parks’s dummy fooling Munster and support from Kenny Logan setting up Parks for his second penalty, followed by a superb score from Donnie Macfadyen, the home flanker. The try had been started with a tap penalty by Sam Pinder, his scrum-half colleague, Lamont following up to send over Macfadyen. That score spurred Munster, John Hayes, the prop, battering his way to the home 22, flanker David Wallace arriving as an extra back and Glasgow only managing to kill the ball to prevent the try. It earned Macfadyen a spell in the sin-bin and allowed Munster to kick for touch, mauling the subsequent lineout over for Frank Sheahan, the hooker, to score, the home side holding out to lead at the break.

You cannot, however, legislate for individual brilliance and in Cullen, the Munster full-back, you have it. He was already joint top try-scorer in the league and took the lead outright when he popped up on the blind side of a ruck, cutting the angle across the defence and having the pace to reach the line.

With O’Gara missing the conversion, the teams were back level. Not for long, however, as the score seemed to inspire Glasgow, with Parks breaking on his own to set up the attack, the forwards battering the Irish line and Andy Henderson cutting through the scattered defence. But Glasgow’s handling of the kick-offs was disastrous, and Munster immediately exploited the weakness as they won the ball back, Mike Mullins doing the hard work to put in Anthony Horgan for the try that, with O’Gara at last finding his kicking form, again levelled the scores.

As the game moved into its final quarter it looked as though the Munster pack was getting on top and they were starting to find holes, with Cullen the danger man from broken play.

He proved exactly how tricky he can be after Glasgow had given the ball away in their own 22. The Irish moved it to the right wing where John Kelly, the replacement centre, waited until the final millisecond before he was bundled into touch while offloading to Cullen, who slipped in for his second try. That gave Munster the lead for the first time in the match, although a 40-yard solo burst through the middle from Gordon Bulloch, the Glasgow hooker, earned his side a penalty and Parks kicked it to narrow the gap to two and set up the final drama.

STAR MAN: Christian Cullen (Munster)

Glasgow: R Kerr; K Logan, G Morrison, A Henderson, S Lamont; D Parks, S Pinder; K Tkachuk, G Bulloch, L Harrison, A Hall, D Turner, C Mather, D Macfadyen, J Petrie (Capt).

Tries: Macfadyen, Henderson Conversions: Parks (2) Penalties: Parks (4)

Munster. C Cullen; S Payne, J Storey, M Mullins, A Horgan; R O’Gara, P Stringer; M Horan, F Sheahan, J Hayes; T Bowman, T Hogan; A Quinlan, D Wallace, A Foley (Capt)

Tries: Sheahan, Cullen (2), Horgan Conversion: O’Gara Penalty: O’Gara Drop Goal: O’Gara

Referee: N Whitehouse (Wales); Attendance: 3,500