PRO12: Leinster claim thrilling 31-30 win over Glasgow

Leinster's Rory O’Loughlin celebrates scoring a try with Adam Byrne

Leinster squashed Glasgow's faint Guinness PRO12 play-off bid as Joey Carbery's 74th-minute penalty secured a thrilling 31-30 win for the hosts.

A 20-minute delay due to floodlight failure threatened to end the game with just over 90 seconds remaining, but the lights came back on at the RDS Arena and sixth-placed Glasgow were unable to force a last-gasp score.

Early tries from Dominic Ryan and Rory O'Loughlin had propelled Leo Cullen's table-toppers into a 23-6 half-time lead, with prop Peter Dooley also touching down from a maul.

The Warriors, who came to Dublin needing a bonus-point victory, then strung together 10 points, including an Adam Ashe try, before Zane Kirchner registered Leinster's bonus-point score.

However, Leinster ended up needing a penalty from replacement Carbery to rescue the result as replacements Ali Price and Finn Russell inspired a two-try fightback from the visitors in the final quarter.

The lights went out at the RDS during the closing stages of Friday night's epic

Peter Horne punished a Ross Molony high tackle for the opening points as Glasgow got off to a good start.

But Leinster picked up two tries from their first couple of visits to the Scots' 22, Ross Byrne's inside pass releasing Kirchner through the middle, before he put flanker Ryan in under the posts.

Fly-half Byrne, who added the conversion, was also central to the second try, his cross-field kick allowing Adam Byrne to compete with two Glasgow defenders, and the ball broke kindly for O'Loughlin, who ran in his 10th try of the season.

A Horne penalty halved the deficit to 12-6 before Leinster lifted the tempo, aided by a decibel-raising carry from retiring prop Mike Ross.

Dooley piled over at the end of a well-executed 34th-minute lineout drive near the left corner, and that try was sandwiched by two Byrne penalties to open up a 17-point gap.

But Glasgow made almost immediate inroads on the resumption, a bout of pressure from the forwards leading to No 8 Ashe reaching over with Horne converting.

And Horne's 56th-minute penalty had Glasgow within a converted score, only for Leinster to hit the hour mark with a 28-16 advantage, slick hands from Noel Reid and Byrne sending Kirchner spinning away from two defenders for try number four.

The momentum soon swung back in Glasgow's favour, their lively bench having an impact as scrum-half Price used a loose ball to scamper into space and Lee Jones sniffed out a try wide on the left.

Russell converted and also added the extras to his own five-pointer with 69 minutes on the clock, the Scotland stand-off doing brilliantly to twist towards the try-line and stretch out his arm, leaving a stunned Leinster 30-28 behind all of a sudden.

But the Irish outfit have not lost a PRO12 fixture at the RDS since February 2015 and they showed why, Carbery coolly turning a penalty from a lineout into three points, before their defence eventually came out on top.