Leinster's errors gift glory to the artisans

Leinster 14 Perpignan 21

The good folk of Dublin will be the last people on earth to agree with the proposition, but it is fair to argue that whatever Irish rugby may have been about in recent decades, it has not been about Leinster, a big-city team with a small-town record. Munster are the glory boys, thanks to their famous assaults on sundry All Blacks and Wallabies and their frequent heroics in the Heineken Cup; Ulster still bask in the warm glow of a European title secured in 1999. In the public consciousness, Leinster are a distant third of three.

This was their opportunity to grab a piece of the action, to bag a little hype for themselves. And they made a pig's ear of it. An elephant's ear, in fact. Denis Hickie apart, Brian O'Driscoll was their most threatening player, and he was on one leg from the start. They could not even make anything of a penalty count so heavily in their favour that it bordered on the scandalous. If Leinster were as saintly on the disciplinary front as Nigel Williams and his fellow officials made out, they sinned horribly everywhere else.

They could not catch, they could not pass and they could not kick. They were not much good at anything else, either, although O'Driscoll did pull off one extraordinary piece of ball smuggling early in the second half to deny Bernard Goutta, the visiting captain, an opening try. The incident had more than a whiff of turning-point about it, for Perpignan's confidence away from their beloved Stade Aimé Giral has never been much to write home about. Yet the Frenchmen survived the sickening blow of a 56th-minute try from Gordon D'Arcy to pull away in the final quarter.

So we are left with an all-French final – the aristocrats of Toulouse against the artisans from the Catalan coast – at this same Lansdowne Road stadium on 24 May. It is the first time in Heineken Cup history that sides from the same nation have contested the showpiece, and the organisers must now be contemplating the wisdom of fixing the venue at the start of the tournament. Toulouse will shift bucket-loads of tickets, but Perpignan rarely offer more than the proverbial two men and un chien in the way of travelling support. At the very least, it will be a stern test of the competition's pulling power.

Not that anyone should begrudge Perpignan their success. They have some magnificent, if largely anonymous, workers up front – Gregory Le Corvec, their 25-year-old blind-side flanker with an unusually elastic approach to the art of burgling opposition line-outs, played an absolute blinder, as did Pascal Bomati on the right wing. Their top-of-the-bill acts have also delivered in this tournament. Rimas Alvarez Kairelis, the excellent Argentinian Test lock, ran his heart out yesterday, while Marc Dal Maso, that grizzled old warrior-prince of the Tricolore front row, made a mighty impact when he trundled on for the last 20-odd minutes.

At one point, Alvarez Kairelis performed a very passable impersonation of Lazarus – so good, indeed, that it brought the house down. The influential Puma was receiving treatment when his colleagues coughed up possession in a dangerous position near the left touch-line. In a flash, he was on his feet and sprinting hell for leather towards the ball, leaving the tracksuited medical staff staring blankly at a bare patch of grass. Sadly for Leinster, O'Driscoll was not resurrectable. When he limped off with 14 minutes left, he stayed off.

O'Driscoll's departure followed hard on the heels of Bomati's try, which pulled Perpignan back on terms at 11-11. The first-half scoring had been limited to a penalty from the wayward Brian O'Meara, who would have struggled to hit a barn door with a beer barrel, and the argument was all square at 6-6 when Hickie ran a threatening midfield line and put D'Arcy over in the right corner. When Bomati levelled it again after incisive approach work and a sweet angled kick from Christophe Manas, it dawned on the Frenchmen that this might be their day.

Six minutes later, Edmonds hurt Leinster with a testing left-sided penalty, and when the powerful Perpignan forwards put the Irishmen through the grinder with a rolling maul that positively oozed ruthless intent, Dal Maso ripped off the side and claimed the wrap-up try. The pre-match favourites had nothing left to offer, save a stoppage-time penalty from Nathan Spooner that put them back within range, if only in theory.

"Our error count was way too high," groaned Matt Williams, the Leinster coach. Had he not been quite so lost for words, he would surely have plumped for "stratospheric". At the start of the game, the sky was the limit for Williams. By the end, it had caved in on him.

Leinster: Try D'Arcy; Penalties O'Meara 2, Spooner. Perpignan: Tries Bomati, Dal Maso; Conversion Edmonds; Penalty Edmonds; Drop goals Cermeno, Edmonds.

Leinster: G Dempsey; D Hickie, B O'Driscoll (N Spooner, 66), D Quinlan, G D'Arcy; C Warner, B O'Meara (B O'Riordan, 73); R Corrigan (capt), S Byrne, E Byrne, L Cullen, M O'Kelly, E Miller (A McCullen, 66), K Gleeson, V Costello.

Perpignan: J-M Souverbie; P Bomati, P Giordani, C Manas, F Cermeno; M Edmonds, L Lousteau (J Basset, 66); N Mas, M Konieckiewicz (M Dal Maso, 56), S De Desbombes (A Moreno, 84), J Thion, R Alvarez Kairelis, G Le Corvec (L Mallier, 73), B Goutta (capt), P Murphy (J Daniell, 66, C Porcu, 79).

Referee: N Williams (Wales).