[caption id="attachment_69349" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Ben Foden of Northamton can’t stop Johne Murphy scoring a try for Munster."]
THE stage is set for a possible Heineken Cup final involving two Irish teams following another hugely successful weekend that brought victories for Munster, Leinster and Connacht with Ulster suffering a narrow defeat.
Munster's stunning 51-36 away win over Northampton left them as top seeds, edging out Leinster who disposed of Montpellier 25-3 at the RDS. Ulster, in spite of losing 19-15 away to Clermont, also qualified for the knock-out stages, while Connacht managed their first victory of the competition by upsetting Harlequins 9-8 at the Sportsground.
Consequently, Munster, Leinster and Ulster all go through to the quarter-finals to be played after the Six Nations Championship in early April. Intriguingly, Munster will now face Ulster in an all-Irish quarter-final at Thomond Park.
Leinster's prize for finishing as the second leading qualifiers is a home draw against Cardiff Blues. The remaining two quarter-finals will see Saracens facing Clermont at home, while surprise packets, the Michael Bradley coached Edinburgh, will play hosts to Toulouse at Murrayfield.
The semi-final draw has also been made. That will see the winners of the Munster-Ulster tie take on either Edinburgh and Toulouse at an Irish venue, presumably the Aviva Stadium.
Leinster though will have to travel for an away semi-final against either Saracens or Clermont should they overcome Cardiff Blues. In a perfect world they might also have also got home country semi-final advantage but, overall, there can be few complaints.
It's hard to know where to start, given the dramatic events of the weekend. But perhaps the best thing to do is to put the achievements of the Irish provinces into context.
While three of the four Irish sides made it though to the quarter-finals, only one out of seven of the English Premiership outfits, Saracens managed to do so. France have two representatives, with Wales and Scotland getting one side through.
Furthermore, Ireland had the top two seeds in Munster and Leinster. What's more, Ulster have suddenly shown that they are a real force, very nearly beating a Clermont team that has not lost a home game since November 2009. Nor should Connacht's achievement in beating Harlequins be underplayed. Harlequins went into the game as English Premiership leaders, yet found themselves dumped out of the tournament by a Connacht side absolutely determined to end a long losing run.
Pride of place possibly, however, should go to Munster. Although they had won all of their five previous pool games, there was a feeling they were not quite at their best.
So, Saturday's away game against Northampton at the MK Dons soccer Stadium was a huge test. Had Munster lost, they would have been denied the vital home quarter-final draw.
The match was quite sensational. And no one was more sensational than the 21-year-old Munster wing Simon Zebo who finished with a hat-trick of tries.
Zebo from the Cork Constitution club only got his chance because of an injury to Doug Howlett earlier this season. He has bags of pace, inherited no doubt from his father who might have competed for France in the 1976 Montreal Olympics had it not been for injury.
At one stage early in Saturday's encounter Munster trailed 13-3. Their normally strong scrum came under huge pressure with Northampton eventually being awarded two penalty tries.
But Munster keep bouncing back in what was undoubtedly their best performance of the season. By half-time Munster were back level at 19-19 and, in an enthralling second half, Zebo struck going over for his hat-trick of tries, the last two coming in the final 10 minutes. One of them, from an intercept, saw him run over half the length of the field. Further scores from BJ Botha and Johne Murphy brought Munster's try tally to five, with the remainder of the points coming from the boot of Ronan O'Gara and substitute Ian Keatley.
Everyone did their bit, with the only real concern being the fact that Munster came under such pressure in the scrum. But that has to be balanced by the fact that Northampton are so strong in this area.
The one thing they can be certain about is that they are going to face a big test against Ulster. Coach Tony McGahan said: "I saw Ulster beating Leicester 41-7 and I thought they were absolutely sensational.
"They have put together a series of top-class performances and we expect a really difficult quarter-final,” he added.
On the subject of Zebo, McGahan commented: "Simon is someone we've had our eye on for a while. He got his chance because of the injury to Dougie [Howlett] and has progressed remarkably well."
So have Munster's next opponents Ulster. Although they lost 19-14 in France, they came out of the game with huge credit.
Clermont's second half match-winning try from Ti' Paulo should have been ruled out because the space was created by an American Football style block from former Leinster man Nathan Hines. Unfortunately, neither the referee or touch judge saw the incident.
That was the only try of the game with Morgan Parra landing with four penalties and a conversions for Clermont and Ruan Pienaar responding with five penalties for Ulster. Significantly, Clermont coach Vern Cotter was highly impressed with Ulster, stressing that they are "very close" to the standards set by Leinster and Munster.
Leinster, for their part, gave an accomplished performance to beat Montpellier 25-3, with the slight disappointment being the lack of a bonus point for a fourth try. Their three tries came from Sean O'Brien, Cian Healy and Rob Kearney.
Fergus McFadden, who took over the kicking duties in the absence of the injured Jonathan Sexton, landed two conversions and two penalties. Coach Joe Schmidt was well satisfied but he warned that
Cardiff are capable of proving difficult opponents in the quarter-finals. That said, Leinster will be strong favourites to go through. Connacht, meanwhile, will be delighted to have finished off their first Heineken Cup campaign with that memorable 9-8 upset victory over Harlequins. Given their long losing run stretching back to 14 games, it was a tremendous effort to beat the English Premiership League leaders.
Out-half Niall O'Connor got all of their points with three penalties as Connacht defending magnificently in a hard fought game played in difficult conditions. Coach Eric Elwood summed it up: "I think everyone got their reward, the players and the crowd. It may not have been the prettiest of games because of the conditions but I'm quite happy to take an ugly win, no problem."
Heineken Cup quarter-final draw (To be played on the weekend of 6/8 of April) - Munster v Ulster; Leinster v Cardiff Blues; Edinburgh v Toulouse; Saracens v Clermont. Semi-final draw - Saracens or Clermont v Leinster or Cardiff; Munster or Ulster v Edinburgh or Toulouse (To be played April 27/29).
Lilywhites prevail
KILDARE manager Kieran McGeeney wasn't about to make too much of his side's 1-11 to 0-8 O'Byrne Cup semi-final victory over Dublin at Newbridge on Sunday.
Secretly, he must have been well pleased with the victory. Kildare were much the better side throughout and it was important for the Lilywhites to make a statement against the All-Ireland champions.
But he also appreciated that this was a Dublin outfit that only included just five of their All-Ireland winning team in their starting lined-up. Furthermore, the real competitive action only really begins with the start of the league.
So McGeeney was very measured in his summing up. He commented: "I wouldn't be reading too much into the victory. It seems to be more important for you [the media] than it is for me."
That said, this was a very encouraging effort by Kildare, albeit at such an early stage of the season. Dublin manager Pat Gilroy wasn't reluctant to admit as much.
"The better team won." he stressed. "It might have been a closer game had we taken one or two goal scoring chances but in fairness Kildare were much better than us today." It was a competitive encounter played with Dublin receiving 11 yellow cards, compared to seven for Kildare. Dublin's Paul Brogan and Kildare's Eoghan O'Flaherty were both sent off in the second half following second yellow cards.
Kildare defending really well, denying the Dublin forwards space. Dublin managed to keep in touch, only trailing by 0-5 to 0-4 at the interval but Kildare then took control with Ronan Sweeney scoring a crucial penalty.
He finished as Kildare top scorer with 1-1, while Tomas Quinn was the main congtributor for the Dubs with 0-5, four of which came from frees. Kildare will now face DCU (Dublin City University) in the O'Byrne Cup final.
DCU booked their place with an impressive 2-8 to 0-6 victory over Meath in Navan. This is a strong DCU line-up which includes Dublin players James McCarthy, Philly McMahon, Eoghan O'Gara and Paul Flynn.
But it was Sligo's David Kelly who did most of the damage scoring two goals and a point. DCU manager Niall Moyna, however, had a major complaint to make after the game.
It concerned Donegal manager Jim McGuinness. Moyna claimed that McGuinness had threatened DCU midfielder Martin McElhinney with expusionion from the Donegal squad if he did not make himself available for a challenge game against Cavan earlier last Saturday.
In the event, McElhinney went up to play in the challenge game but damaged an ankle in the warm-up. Moyna fumed: "We talk about player welfare but Martin is in the middle of examinations and incidents like this amount to an abuse of the player.
"He is one of our top performers and we may not have him for the Sigerson Cup now." Be that as it may, DCU coped remarkably well without McElhinney against Meath and it's now going to be interesting to see how they fare in Sunday's final against Kildare.
In Ulster, Tyrone and Derry will contest the Dr McKenna Cup final. Tyrone were far too good for Fermanagh in the semi-finals, winning 2-12 to 1-4, while Derry edged out Down by 0-11 to 0-9.
It was the second time within the week that Tyrone had beaten Peter Cavavan's Fermanagh. They did so by 0-13 to 1-7 in midweek. Cavavan could have few complaints about the superiority of his fomer colleagues, particularly in Sunday's semi-final. Watched by a big crowd of close to 9,000, they took command in the second half with Ronan O'Neill and Owen Mulligan scoring goals.
Derry also came good in the second half against Down but this was a much closer game. The difference was the excellent finishing of Conleth Gilligan who contributed 0-6.
In Munster, Cork and Tipperary made it through to the McGrath Cup decider. Cork trounced Cork IT by 2-17 to 0-7, while Tippeary got the better of UCC by 1-15 to 0-10.
Paul Kerrigan finished with 1-6 as Cork completely dominated. Barry Grogan also contributed 1-6 in Tipperary's fine win.
In Connacht the final of the FBD League will be contested by Mayo and NUI Galway. Both sides had already made certain of their place in the decider before facing Roscommon and Sligo last Sunday.
In the event, Mayo beat Roscommon by 0-14 to 1-9, while BUI Galway went down to a surprise 2-4 t 0-9 defeat at the hands of IT Sligo.Elsewhere, Galway beat Sligo by 4-9 to 0-12, while Leitrim accounted for GMIT 1-11 to 0-7.
On the hurling front, Tipperary opened their season with a 2-24 to 1-16 Walsh Cup success over Limerick IT, while Westmeath surprised Offaly (2-13 to 0-12) in the same competition.
