Joe Schmidt was delighted after Leinster's bonus-point 38-22 victory over Racing Metro 92.
Leinster head coach happy after bonus-point victory
Joe Schmidt hailed a "perfect start" to Leinster's Heineken Cup campaign after his side's bonus-point 38-22 victory over Racing Metro 92.
The Irish outfit raced to a commanding 21-6 lead at the break, but the French side pulled the score back to 26-19 before Schmidt's team again pushed on.
Afterwards, the Leinster head coach expressed himself pleased with the win, believing it will be a tough pool to progress from.
He said: "It's the perfect start. 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 (against Saracens).
"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."
Better control
Racing coach Simon Mannix was pleased with the way his side battled back in the game but believes they must control the ball better in future.
"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," said the New Zealander.
"It is a big lesson to take out of it. We have to control the ball better than we did today."
Mannix felt that Racing caused their own undoing by making too many mistakes against a quality side.
"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."
