Holders Munster missed the chance to go top of the Magners League on Saturday as they were comprehensively beaten 31-22 in Wales by the Newport Gwent Dragons.
Aled Brew, Will Harries and Martyn Thomas all notched trys as the hosts closed on the playoff places. And the fact that the kicking of Jason Tovey was superior of that to Ronan O'Gara ultimately told as a penalty try and efforts from Tommy O'Donnell and Tony Buckley accounted for the visitors' scoring, the latter making the defeat more respectable.
Munster were denied by the TMO early on as Dan Lydiate's arm blocked sight of whether or not Doug Howlett had touched down.
The Welsh side took advantage of that let-off to take the lead with a fine try from Brew, who received the ball on the left courtesy of a smashing pass from Tovey and rampaged past Alan Quinlan and Paul Warwick to go over in the corner for his fifth try of the season. Tovey added the extras from a tight angle.
Munster got level with a penalty try after a succession of scrum offences from the Dragons. O'Gara, who had hit the post with an earlier penalty, converted but the boot of Tovey put a 13-7 gap between the sides at half-time as he hit two competent penalties, the second after Lifeimi Mafi was sin-binned following an offside.
Paul Turner's men then made the perfect start to the second half as Munster let Harries slip right through the right channel and he touched down a simple try with Tovey converting in equally untroubled fashion.
O'Gara then missed a penalty and conversion after he and Howlett were involved in setting flanker O'Donnell up for a try in the corner, but Tovey then made it 23-12 with a penalty.
It stayed that way for a while until an O'Gara reply - after Wayne Evans was sin-binned - was more than cancelled out by Thomas's try, the full back latching on to another brilliant ball from the starring Tovey to all but end the contest.
Tovey proved he was human by missing the conversion but then made it 31-15 with a penalty before O'Gara converted Buckley's last-gasp consolation try, which came after a series of clever short-range attacks from Tony McGahan's men.