Mike Ruddock's Leinster side have come a long way, but not quite far enough to reach the knock-out stages of the Heineken Cup. They will meet every morning for training, but with no quarter-final to sustain them in three months' time, their season is effectively over.
Indeed, this is fitting, for as in the moments immediately after Saturday's full-time whistle, they find themselves utterly in limbo. Both their coach and his assistant, Matt Williams, must wait to see whether the Leinster Branch/IRFU renew their contracts, and they must also await Munster's quarter-final in three months' time to see whether Declan Kidney's men earn Ireland (i.e. Leinster) a third place in next season's European Cup.
All the other weekend results went against Leinster - Bath beat Toulouse, Llanelli beat Wasps and Montferrand's win yesterday left Leinster, a little unluckily, two ranking places away from the last eight.
There were some mixed emotions on the coach journey back to Birmingham airport on Saturday evening. Leinster need feel no shame about a satisfactory enough campaign which yielded seven competitive wins out of 12 games, and a finish of some elan with a third successive victory.
They became the first visiting side to storm the Welford Road citadel in over two years and 28 games. True, the Leicester team which Dean Richards put out was there for the taking. Neil Back, Austin Healy, Will Greenwood, Tim Stimpson and Darren Garforth were amongst those missing in addition to Martin Johnson, and while Richards was all denials, it will be a surprise if the first five named do not face Saracens next week.
Fans of the best supported club in England could scarcely believe their eyes as the home pack were comprehensively outplayed in the line-outs (hooker Richard Cockerill looked like he would struggle to hit a barn door from two paces), mauls and ultimately in the scrums as well. The net result was that Leicester coughed up seven of their first-half line-outs and O'Kelly claimed another couple after the break. Thus despite a puzzling 10-3 penalty count to the home side in the first-half, with Andy Goode unsurprisingly demonstrating little control at out-half and missing a couple of routine penalties to touch, Leinster lorded it territorially.
Leinster's Reggie Corrigan, Shane Byrne and the entire back-row all shook off their midweek setback when they were not chosen in the Irish squad to have big games. And no-one deserved a try more than Leinster's principal yardage hauler Bob Casey, whose fine try, after a 71st minute charge through three Tigers, has been coming all season.
Alongside him, O'Kelly has become the victim of a classically Irish whisper campaign that would have him pigeon-holed as an unfulfilled talent. For the third game running, aside from his expert line-out work, he was frequently the first forward to the breakdown, hit a host of rucks and put in his usual high tackle count. Let's give the kid a bit of slack.
Scrum-half Stu Forster's service and occasional sniping, along with Emmet Farrell's most assured all-round display yet, gave the Leinster backs a service from which they might have scored more tries. All the more so as the in-form Shane Horgan gave another effective all-round display, while the ever-dangerous Dennis Hickie maintained his encouraging recuperation and Peter McKenna provided a cutting edge at full back. But they had little luck.
Admittedly, O'Driscoll on one occasion might have used two men on his outside from Forster's long skip pass rather than cutting inside. But after Leinster had declined to scrummage Leicester into the ground, they saw O'Driscoll get over the line without being given the verdict, and then saw referee Jim Fleming over-rule Farrell's try under the posts following Forster's skip pass and O'Driscoll's dummy run. Fleming was the only one in the ground who saw a forward pass.
The decision kept Leicester in the game longer than would otherwise have been the case, and was compounded by Leicester using the full width of the pitch, a la rugby league, for full back Geordan Murphy to neatly put Nnamadi Ezulike away within a minute.
Conscious of the probable need to score four or more tries, Leinster had decided to win the game first before cutting loose. Thus, to the slight disappointment of their following, Farrell was still kicking a penalty on the hour for a 22-5 lead after Forster's reverse pass had put John McWeeney in under the posts. And Farrell's drop goal made it 25-10 seven minutes later.
They would, in fact, have needed 10 tries to go through. Now they're good, but they're not that good, and Leicester were never going to be that bad.
Scoring sequence - 3 mins: Farrell pen 03; 28 mins: Ezulike try 5-3; 36 mins: Farrell pen 5-6; 45 mins: Farrell pen 5-9; 48 mins: Farrell pen 5-12; 54 mins: McWeeney try, Farrell con 519; 60 mins: Farrell pen 5-22; 67 mins: Farrell drop goal 5-25; 68 mins: Lloyd try 10-25; 71 mins: Casey try, Farrell con 10-32.
Leicester: G Murphy; L Loyd, C Joiner, P Howard, N Ezulike; A Goode, J Hamilton; P Freshwater, R Cockerill, D Jelley, M Corry (capt), B Kay, L Moody, W Johnson, P Gustard. Replacements: W Greenwood for Howard (46 mins); A Balding for Gustard (52 mins); T Stimpson for Murphy (56 mins); D West for Cockerill (61 mins); P Greenbury for Jelley (61 mins); G Rowntree for Freshwater (69 mins).
Leinster: P McKenna; D Hickie, B O'Driscoll, S Horgan, J McWeeney; E Farrell, S Forster; R Corrigan, S Byrne, G Halpin, R Casey, M O'Kelly, D O'Brien, V Costello, L Toland (capt). Replacements: T Brennan for O'Brien (59 mins); P Coyle for Halpin (69 mins); P Smyth for Byrne (73 mins).
Referee: J Fleming (Scotland).
