SEXTON PRIDE IN HIS CHAMPS
LEINSTER skipper Johnny Sexton praised his side’s second half comeback and admitted: “It’s in our hands now.”
Victory for Ulster would have almost certainly earned them a place in the PRO14 final at the champions’ expense.
But instead a bonus point Blues win makes them favourites for the March decider from Conference A.
“It’s in our hands now, there’s still a lot of work to do but that’s all you can ask for,” said
Sexton. “We’re going to lose a lot of players to the international window and then the rest of the squad are going to have to pick it up.
“It’s always been a squad effort in this club for those reasons and it’s no different now.
“We needed to get a game together, for me I haven’t played for Leinster for a long time apart from 20 minutes last week so it’s about getting that continuity.
“You could see we were very rusty, especially in the first half and I was very proud of how we gathered ourselves at half- time and had a very good second half performance.”
Ulster coach Dan Mcfarland was “really disappointed” to leave without even a bonus point.
He added: “We came down with a side that we thought would put in a really good performance and certainly for the first half we did.
“We were against a Leinster that was more or less fully loaded, very strong. At half- time, we put ourselves into a good position with some smart and strong play.
“Then at the start of the second half we made two errors. That was really the flipping of the game.”