Rugby:Joe Schmidt felt he got "the perfect start" to his first Heineken Cup campaign as Leinster head coach, with their bonus-point 38-22 victory over Racing Metro 92 a clear signal of intent for this season's tournament.
Two first-half tries from man-of-the-match Seán O'Brien and Rob Kearney, both converted by Isa Nacewa, and three penalties from Nacewa put Leinster in a commanding 21-6 lead at the break.
Racing, who came into their first Heineken Cup as Top 14 leaders, were limited to a penalty each from Jerome Fillol and Francois Steyn.
"It's the perfect start," proclaimed a happy Schmidt afterwards. "It is such a tough pool that you can be out just as quickly.
"Come Monday, the reality is we have to start again. We will take a look at the Clermont Auvergne v Saracens game and hopefully find a couple of chinks in the armour for next week's game at Wembley.
"I thought we converted a few chances to keep the gap between us and Racing, because they came back from almost 20 points down last week (against Toulouse) and we were conscious we couldn't let them back into the game.
"They came close to doing it, so it was good to see the composure from the guys to pull away again."
After Fillol closed the gap to 21-9 within a minute of the restart, Leinster took advantage of Nicolas Durand's sin-binning when Luke Fitzgerald carved open the Racing defence before hooker Richardt Strauss was sent over in the corner.
Racing coach Simon Mannix saw his side respond with a 55-metre penalty from Steyn and a converted Albert Vulivuli try, bringing the visitors back to within a converted try.
"At 26-19 we felt we were in the game. We had control of the ball. We kicked our goals, scored a nice try but we need more than that," explained the New Zealander afterwards.
"It is a big lesson to take out of it. We have to control the ball better than we did today."
Leinster finished with five tries. Stand-in captain Jamie Heaslip ensured the bonus point with his, and then a superb solo effort from Fergus McFadden pushed the winning margin out to 16 points - but Mannix felt that Racing caused their own undoing.
"I feel we contributed to the game, contributed probably more than half the points easily for Leinster which is always nice," he added sarcastically. "(We made) a lot of mistakes and when you make that many mistakes against a quality opposition, you have to pay.
"We are here to play the competition and we want to be part of it as one of the best teams in Europe. That's one of Leinster's best performances today and we drew that today.
"We know we are capable of better, much better and we know we have to improve. If we want to try and get out of the pool we are going to have to improve really quick."