There's no such thing as perfection in sport but Leo Cullen will be well pleased this Monday morning after establishing a firm base at the foot of the Champions Cup mountain.
Saturday’s 47-21 win over Bath, the Premiership leaders, saw them top pool two and, thanks to Sunday’s results, end up as the second seed for the knockout stages.
That means a home run to a possible final in Cardiff at the end of May.
There’s work to be done first but the Dublin play-offs have proved a relatively easy path to negotiate for the boys in blue over the last three years.
It’s the manner of how they have dug out their four group-stage wins, against Bristol, Clermont, La Rochelle and Bath, that will please the Leinster coaches most.
It looks like they have escaped almost injury-free and have their blessed work-ons to work on for the next few weeks.
Against the top two in England, they ran out handsome winners but there was graft and grit needed at various stages. The ability to change the momentum of the ties mid-match crucial.
Their French opposition, thankfully, challenged them in different ways; Clermont exposing how much work their lineout needed and Ronan O’Gara’s La Rochelle drawing a defensive masterclass. Jacques Nienaber, take a bow.
Leinster failed to picked up bonuses against their Top 14 opponents and finished on 18 points from a possible 20.
Last season it was 19 with the win in La Rochelle the only time they failed to win by more than 10 points
In 2022/23 no pool rival got within three converted tries of a victory against Leinster.
The previous season, only a pandemic-forfeited game against Montpellier, cost them full marks.
On the field, they put 109 points on Bath in two games and 89 on Montpellier at the RDS.
Simply put, it was too easy.
Leinster 'quality shone through'
After falling short in the final for three years running, lessons learned in the pool can only help the team in the long run.
Truth be told, the round of 16, quarter and semi-finals have not fully primed Cullen’s charges for what followed in three consecutive deciders so full-blooded pool clashes are exactly what they needed.
In nine knockout ties since losing to La Rochelle in the 2021 semi-final, only Northampton last season got within a score. The rest were routine wins, detrimental as it proved in the end.
The question of whether Bath’s attack, which hit Leinster for three first-half tries, exposed glitches in the system and if, in the long run, that was a welcome thing, was posed to Cullen (below) on Saturday evening.
"I’m not sure I welcomed being 14-0 down but it certainly kicked everybody into gear didn’t it, players, crowd, everything," said the 47-year-old, whose side trailed 21-19 at the break but ran in four unanswered second-half tries.
"I think everybody was like 'we’re in for a serious game here now’.
"Even the try on half-time as well. Definitely it was edge of the seat stuff for large parts of the game and there’s the emotional energy over the course of those six days.
"It’s not straightforward to manage, and going back to some of the selections, we made some changes, trying to get a bit of freshness.
"Rugby at this time of the year is not easy to play, is it?
"What did we score, five tries away in Bristol, the second game here against a very sticky defensive-minded team, Clermont, very strong kicking game and the conditions obviously deteriorated pretty drastically as well.
"I looked at the [La Rochelle] game back last week and we defended well at the start of the game, but that takes a bit of a toll as well.
"So you're making 60-70 tackles probably in that first 20 minutes. The flip side is, we concede two tries today and you're 14-0 down, so which would you prefer?
"It maybe saves a bit of juice in the legs and that's for people to understand."
Leinster will lose 24 players to Ireland duty over the next two months but some in need of game time, Tadhg Furlong, James Lowe and Dan Sheehan the most prominent, may be held back to feature against the Stormers in the URC on Saturday.
On the far side of the Six Nations, with Ireland, under interim boss Simon Easterby, looking for an historic three in a row, Leinster will welcome Harlequins to Dublin, with Croke Park earmarked for a round of 16 game, the first of what they hope will be three knockout ties in the capital.
"Yeah, that's always great," added Cullen, who last led Leinster to the European Cup in 2018.
"As many things as you can control as possible is useful but it's not the be all and end all but you need to make it count.
"But I'm sure our supporters are appreciative that the games will be at home, hopefully.
"We just need to worry about the next game which is Stormers, not the last 16."
