Leinster stormed to an emphatic 35-12 win against the Bristol Bears in their Champions Cup opener last weekend, kickstarting their bid to once again be Champions of Europe with a bonus point win.
Despite being highlighted as the most exciting challenge of the weekend, the game largely failed to live up to its billing, with the poor conditions in Ashton Gate and the stop-start nature of the game all contributing to an underwhelming viewing experience.
Bristol raced out of the traps and opened the scoring on Friday night. However, it wasn't long before Leinster would end their hold on the game, levelling the affair before halftime, and crossing the whitewash another four times in the second half.
While on the scoreboard there could be little question of Leinster's dominance, on the field ill-discipline once again reared its ugly head, just like it did for Ireland a number of weeks ago.
Leinster would give away two yellow cards in the opening half, another in the second half and if we're being honest were lucky to escape a fourth when enforcer Joe McCarthy tripped a player up.
Like McCarthy, Sam Prendergast was also fortunate not to be punished for sliding into a tackle that tripped a Bristol player up. The accumulative 30 minutes Leinster players spent in the bin was only worsened by the double-digit seventeen penalties they conceded throughout the game.
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Bernard Jackman takes cheeky dig at Leinster stars
While Joe McCarthy and Sam Prendergast both escaped yellow cards for their actions, their Leinster colleague Max Deegan wasn't so fortunate. The Leinster blindside was caught throwing his leg out to trip Fitz Harding and was deservedly shown a yellow card for it, compounding the issues Ronan Kelleher's yellow card had risen just two minutes earlier.
Speaking on the RTÉ Rugby Podcast, Bernard Jackman took a good-spirited but cheeky swipe at Leinster. Praising the strength of Leinster's defence, Jackman joked that the Leinster players just trip you up when it fails.
When AJ McGinty goes off I thought (Bristol's) chance of breaking anything that wasn't a midfield ruck was slim, and then if you did break Leinster they just tripped you up anyway. You know (Bristol) didn't think of that.
Leinster's discipline is a bit of a concern, I think they're so aggressive at the breakdown, they're getting away with it at the moment, but there will come a time when a referee will try stamp it out early, and it's their ability to adapt and ease off on that, but they're very hard to break down at the moment.
One would imagine that Deegan's yellow card combined with Joe McCarthy and Sam Prendergast's close calls might have made for an interesting video review this week.
While they escaped largely unscathed for seventeen penalties last weekend, if the discipline isn't solved Leinster could come find it will come back to bite them in the latter stages of this tournament.
For now, however, Leinster will have to focus on the task of taking on Clermont Auvergne who travel to the Aviva Stadium this Saturday.
