Leinster coach Matt Williams was offering no excuses for Sunday's disappointing defeat to Leicester which ended his side's interest in this year's Heineken Cup at the quarter-final stage. The inaugural Celtic League winners surrendered an early 10-point lead as the home side recovered to win 29-18 at Welford Road, but Williams did admit that injuries to key players didn't help Leinster's cause of toppling the reigning European champions.
Williams was without the services of Irish international Malcom O'Kelly, while fly-half Nathan Spooner struggled through despite being fully fit. Speaking to RTÉ, Williams admitted: "Now there's no excuses, but we certainly missed Malcolm O'Kelly today, and if this wasn't a quarter-final Nathan Spooner would not have been on the field, he was limping for most of the game as you could see. Then you had the unfortunate Shane Horgan, who got on and in the first 15 minutes, got a whack on the other side of his ribs and had to be replaced."
Williams also claimed the pitch played a major part in the outcome, insisting it made conditions extremely difficult for both sides. He continued: "That's also the wettest pitch I've ever seen since I came here, so everything was stacked against us. But again I give credit to my boys, they didn't turn it up and showed enormous character all week and I was proud of them."
Filed by Shane Murray
