By Buzzz
December 13 2021

Two severely disrupted teams served up an entertaining first European Championship game with Munster full value for their 35-14 victory. 

Covid had caused major problems with Munster not having played since October and Wasps discovering that eight players were covid positive on Friday night. We were also without the services of Jack Willis, Joe Launchbury, Vaea Fifita, Malakai Fekitoa, Paolo Odogwu and Dan Robson.

Then we lost Brad Shields who was red-carded for a high tackle in the 26th minute.

Alfie Barbeary also went off injured on his return but not before he scored and Michael le Bourgeois also finished in fine style.

But we couldn't stop Munster's youngsters from having a field day. Veteran Keith Earls started things followed by tries from Patrick Campbell, Andrew Conway and Scott Buckley after the break.

A hard-pressed Lee Blackett told the media: "Obviously, our preparation didn't help and losing Brad early on, we were always up against it from there.

"We lacked continuity and Munster won the game at the breakdown. They killed us and we couldn't build any pressure. We knew the threats they had over the ball but we just weren't good enough on the day.

"There were 25 to pick from today so that is all we have left at the moment. I think we will be forced to look to our academy because I don't think we will have enough numbers to face Toulouse but we will see. We had a lot of guys in there getting experience and that will be good for the future, but it's also about the now and winning."

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