Joe Schmidt was delighted to have got Leinster's Heineken Cup campaign off to a winning start with a 38-22 win over Racing Metro.
Leinster boss pleased with winning start
Joe Schmidt was delighted to have got Leinster's Heineken Cup campaign off to a winning start with a 38-22 win over Racing Metro.
They held a commanding 21-6 lead at the break before competition newboys Racing hit back after half-time to give the Irish giants a scare.
However, Schmidt was just pleased to get the result in his first European match in charge of the side.
"It's the perfect start," said a happy Schmidt afterwards. "It is such a tough pool that you can be out just as quickly.
"Come Monday, the reality is we have to start again. We will take a look at the Clermont Auvergne v Saracens game and hopefully find a couple of chinks in the armour for next week's game at Wembley.
"I thought we converted a few chances to keep the gap between us and Racing, because they came back from almost 20 points down last week (against Toulouse) and we were conscious we couldn't let them back into the game.
"They came close to doing it, so it was good to see the composure from the guys to pull away again."
Downfall
Racing coach Simon Mannix said his side contributed to their own downfall after getting to within seven points of the opposition in the second half.
"At 26-19 we felt we were in the game. We had control of the ball. We kicked our goals, scored a nice try but we need more than that," explained the New Zealander.
"It is a big lesson to take out of it. We have to control the ball better than we did today.
"I feel we contributed to the game, contributed probably more than half the points easily for Leinster which is always nice," he added sarcastically.
"(We made) a lot of mistakes and when you make that many mistakes against a quality opposition, you have to pay.
"We are here to play the competition and we want to be part of it as one of the best teams in Europe. That's one of Leinster's best performances today and we drew that today.
"We know we are capable of better, much better and we know we have to improve. If we want to try and get out of the pool we are going to have to improve really quick."
