As they had done the previous week in Scotland, Munster, working off a solid set piece, particularly dominant at scrum-time, showed a willingness to throw the ball about and although they only managed one try, they were just an unstuck pass away from opening up this Treviso defence. And credit too to the visitors for that defence because it needed to be determined on several occasions to deny the hosts.

It was badly breached as early as the 6th minute when Dave O'Callaghan, who had a fine game, took a ball at the tail of a 22 metre lineout, drove through the Treviso midfield and then sent a delightful inside pass to his skipper Doug Howlett to dot down under the posts.

Howlett was once again at the core of the action, nipping neatly up the right wing later in the half and twice in the second when he ripped the Treviso defence apart, the second time as first receiver when a despairing ankle tap stopped him delivering the scoring pass.

James Downey was another who caught the eye as did Sean Dougall while Ian Keatley's all round solidity made him a worthy RaboDirect Man of the Match.

Treviso opened with a penalty after three minutes from out-half Alberto Di Bernardo before Howlett's try converted by Keatley gave Munster the lead just three minutes after. From then on they basically controlled matters with Keatley kicking seventh, fourteenth and twenty first minute penalties, Treviso's efforts to establish a platform stymied immediately after those penalties by the restart takes of James Coughlan and Dave Foley.

It was to be a different scenario in the second half when the visitors, despite eight changes from their opening day win over Ospreys, managed to gain and hold onto more possession with Brendan Williams constantly asking questions of the Munster defence.

Keatley extended the lead in the 51st minutes, Casey Laulala was stopped short after a period of Munster pressure and the Italian cover defence stopped Luke O'Dea after a Keatley crossfield kick found Coughlan who set up the move.

The closing stages were a reprise of Murrayfield when, after Di Bernardo had reduced the deficit to thirteen, the Italians came looking for the score that would give them the losing bonus.

Twice from penalties they went to the corner for the lineout and drive and twice they came up short as Munster's defenders, down to 14 after Mick Sherry was binned, remained steadfast in their commitment.

Munster: D Hurley; D Howlett, C Laulala, J Downey, L O'Dea; I Keatley, D Williams; W du Preez, D Varley, S Archer; D Foley, B Holland; Dave OCallaghan, S Dougall, J Coughlan. Replacements: M Sherry for Varley, D Kilcoyne for du Preez (both 51); P Butler for Coughlan (55); T O'Donnell for O'Callaghan (61); I Dineen for Laulala (64); P Stringer for Williams (67); S Deasy for Keatley (70); BJ Botha for Archer (72)

Benetton Treviso: B Williams; L Nitoglia, A Sgarbi, L Morisi, T Iannone; A Di Bernardo, E Gori; M Rizzo, E Ceccato, L Cittadini; A Pavanello, V Bernabò; S Favaro, D Budd, P Derbyshire. Replacements: F Semenzato for Morisi (40); A De Marchi for Rizzo, I Fernandez-Rouyet for Cittadini, C Van Zyl for Pavanello (all 47); R Barbieri for Favaro (51); G Maistri for Ceccato (64); A Zanni for Budd (67); K Burton for Gori (71).

Referee: A McMenemy (SRU).