RUGBY: Celtic League/ Leinster 34 Cardiff Blues 15: There were teething problems, both on and off the pitch, and further improvement in both regards will be required when Bath and their meaty pack return to town next week.
Nevertheless, Leinster's RDS era is up and running, and if the five-try to nil defeat at Munster wasn't completely erased, this five-try to nil win put it in the shade.
As dry runs go, Leinster would gladly have settled for this before the kick-off. Sure, there were plenty of errors from forcing the last pass, but these were nearly all made deep in opposition territory as Leinster - full of invention and positive intentions - recorded the quickest bonus point of the season inside 34 minutes of the kick-off.
"It was an improvement (but) too many unforced errors still," observed Michael Cheika, surprisingly subdued, though perhaps endeavouring to keep things in perspective as much as he had done a week previously. No less than becoming a bad team overnight in Cork, they hadn't become world-beaters here.
"We had moments when we were really good, and moments when we were slightly inconsistent. We infringed too much and we gave away too many points. It's a start for us after last week, in heading back on the road to where we want to go. I wouldn't say it's any more than that."
Still, he would surely have settled for a five-try, five-point haul and an unblemished try line before the start. "I'm happy that we achieved the objective. We're only five points behind, which is a win and a bonus point, and I don't want to lose any more touch with the Celtic League than that. So that part was completed. But five tries to nil, they shouldn't be that close to us. If they get a score up to the last minute, they're only one try away."
Quite why this was so was largely down to the fastidious refereeing of Andrew Ireland, a late replacement on Friday for Malcolm Chengleng. Undoubtedly, Leinster contributed to their own difficulties with the Scottish official, specifically at the breakdown when persistently guilty of not rolling away.
The penalty count was 8-2 to the visitors at one point in the last quarter and as Cardiff players sought more and more retribution off the ball, it was no surprise when gratuitous raking by Mike Phillips led to a fierce all-in fight and 10 minutes cooling down for the abrasive Cardiff scrumhalf.
By then, the game was up, although thanks almost exclusively to the penalty count, not as assuredly as it should have been. The tone was set as much by the workhorses up front as anyone else.
Reggie Corrigan was never going to be anything less than focused, 80-minute aggression on the occasion of his 100th Leinster cap. David Blaney justified his recall (not least with a 100 per cent return from his line-out throws), Ben Gissing again bulldozed and bristled his way to a two-try performance, while Jamie Heaslip gave full vent to his extraordinary talents in bouncing back from his eye-opener in Cork with an official man-of-the-match performance.
"His work-rate was excellent and he got a lot more carries in," said Cheika.
"He was getting in the game and enjoying himself, which was good. I'm always harder on the backrow because I used to play in that position.
"I was pretty hard on him during the week about his play from the back of the scrum and he improved it quite well, and his linking with the backs was quite good too."
No one drew the lines in the sand more forcibly than Ciarán Potts. He fell off one or two tackles, but put in some monster hits, chased restarts up the middle athletically and made big ball carries in his most eye-catching performance of the season.
In truth, Felipe Contepomi was probably denied a justifiable man-of-the-match gong for the second home match in a row. Along with Gordon D'Arcy and Shane Horgan, he was Cardiff's tormentor-in-chief, full of creativity for his team-mates with visionary passes and eye for a gap, and virtually everything he did had a stamp of class about it.
Curiously, his influence wasn't quite so pronounced when reverting to outhalf after the departure of Christian Warner with a knee injury which is liable to sideline him for the opening European jousts.
It was Contepomi who set the scoreboard ticking when latching onto Shane Horgan's clever infield kick after he had been released by D'Arcy's cut-out pass.
Horgan exposed Cardiff's porous outside-in defence when straightening through after patient and clever decision-making throughout the build-up, particularly by the impressive Brian O'Riordan for the second.
Contepomi, quick-wittedly turning defence into attack, and Horgan were the creators of D'Arcy's race for the touchdown and the pick was the third, Leinster's spreading of the ball at the back in counter-attacking reaping it's reward with a vintage D'Arcy break after Contepomi's cut-out pass, which led to O'Riordan and Horgan combining for Gissing to score, and Gissing deservedly varnished the win late on.
There were some disgruntled supporters outside, not least due to confusion over the queues, and Leinster need to gather as much information as possible from these sources, but all-in-all it was an important psychological debut win at their new home.
"Donnybrook is our home, there's no doubt about that. But the crowd was into the game, and it gave our players a chance to score a bonus point for the first time this season, so maybe they like running on the old grass. But I thought as a venue it was fantastic," concluded Cheika."
Scoring sequence: 3 mins: Contepomi try and con 7-0; 6: Robinson pen 7-3; 10: Robinson pen 7-6; 16: Horgan try, Contepomi con 14-6; 20: Robinson pen 14-9; 29: D'Arcy try, Contepomi con 21-9; 34: Gissing try 26-9; 39: Robinson pen 26-12; (half-time 26-12); 47: Robinson pen 26-15; 59: Contepomi pen 29-15; 83: Gissing try 34-15.
LEINSTER: G Dempsey; S Horgan, G D'Arcy, F Contepomi (capt), D Hickie; C Warner, B O'Riordan; R Corrigan, D Blaney, W Green, B Gissing, B Williams, C Potts, K Gleeson, J Heaslip. Replacements: R Kearney for Warner (43 mins), R McCormack for Green (49 mins), B Jackman for Blaney (72-79 mins), C Jowitt for Williams (72 mins), K Lewis for D'Arcy (72 mins), B O'Meara for B O'Riordan (76 mins). Not used: D Dillon.
CARDIFF BLUES: R Williams (Capt); C Czekaj, J Robinson, T Davies, C Morgan; N Robinson, M Phillips; J Yapp, G Williams, B Evans, D Jones, R Sidoli, M Molitika, M Williams, X Rush. Replacements: M Jones for Yapp (37-40 mins), K Schubert for Molitika (half-time), M Stcherbina for Davies (53 mins), R Powell for Czekaj (75 mins), R Johnson, R Sowden-Taylor, L Thomas.
Referee: Andrew Ireland (SRU).
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