A marvellous commitment and work ethic and superb game managment and unerring boot of the maestro Ronan O’Gara saw Munster defeat Saracens 15-9 at a packed and noisy Thomond Park Stadium on Saturday evening.

And while O'Gara's old buddy Donncha O'Callaghan also put in a mighty shift along with the outstanding James Coughlan and Doug Howlett led by brave example, it was the new generation, players with little enough Heineken Cup experience, who helped enormously in getting Munster over the line in what was a bruisingly physical encounter.

Starting in his first Heineken Cup game, Dave O'Callaghan had a great game and a massive influence. So too did Peter O'Mahony, Dave Kilcoyne and Mike Sherry while the spirit and determination of the entire squad was probably best illustrated by Simon Zebo's tackle on Will Fraser in the right hand corner early in the second half.

But this wasn't all about grim Munster defence. They had two good try scoring opportunities in the opening half the best of them when Conor Murray left Saracens defenders for dead and just failed to connect to Zebo metres short of the line.

And Munster ended that half with O'Gara just missing with a drop goal attempt that would have left his side 12 rather than 9-3 in front.

Try scoring opportunities were always going to be as rare as hen's teeth and so it came down to the battle of the boot and that was won emphatically by O'Gara. He kicked three in the opening half, two more in the second while Owen Farrell could only manage two from six.

And so Munster now head for Vicarage Road and another huge test. The very definite noise emanating from the Sarries dressing room post match was that they'd somehow underperformed and that their expected improvement would take care of the Munster challenge next Sunday in London.

Munster: F Jones; D Howlett (capt), K Earls, J Downey, S Zebo; R O'Gara, C Murray; D Kilcoyne, M Sherry, BJ Botha; D O'Callaghan, D Ryan; D O'Callaghan, P O'Mahony, J Coughlan. Replacements : P Butler for Dave O'Callaghan (62 mins), W du Preez for D Kilcoyne, D Varley for M Sherry, C Laulala for F Jones (all 66 mins), I Keatley for S Zebo (74 mins).

Saracens: A Goode: C Ashton, O Farrell, B Barritt, D Strettle; C Hodgson, N de Kock; R Gill, S Brits, M Stevens; S Borthwick (capt), M Botha; K Brown, W Fraser, E Joubert. Replacements : M Vunipola for W Fraser (temp, 21 – 30), M Vunipola for R Gill, R Wigglesworth for N de Kock (both 50 mins), D Strettle for C Hodgson (57 mins), G Kruis for M Botha, J Smit for S Brits (both 59 mins), A Saul for W Fraser (64 mins). Sin bin : Donncha O'Callaghan and Rhys Gill (20-30 mins)

Referee: P Gauzere (France).