A delighted Munster coach Declan Kidney agreed that yesterday's performance in the Tigers' lair was right up there with their finest opening performances in the competition.

"Yeah I think so, when you look at our record in our first-up matches away in England. But we got a great start. Sometimes you can get blown away in the first 20 minutes but after 20 minutes I think we were 8-3 up.

"Then we managed to get a try just before half-time, but they kept gnawing away and I think their 19 points all came from penalty decisions, four penalties, a penalty try and a conversion."

He did not accept these statistics were indicative of indiscipline on Munster's part. "No, those were just the facts. We always pride ourselves on our own discipline and so we'll take a good look at it and see.

"There are so many areas for us to improve but I know full well that while all the teams could come to Thomond Park and win, they are the one team who really could do it - so it's four points but it will only be of value if we manage to win the return game."

"I'm not saying we're by far the better side or anything like that, because they had three or four breakthroughs where the ball was spilled in the first 20-25 minutes."

Eyebrows were raised when the returning John Hayes was substituted with 10 minutes to go, just when the Munster forwards were under the cosh.

"That's John's first start of the season," Kidney explained. "I suppose if we had left John on and they had squeezed us over that would have been the wrong call. You just make these calls on the spur of the moment. You don't know if they're right or wrong."

He confessed he was puzzled by the referee's decision to award a penalty try at such a crucial time. "Why was the penalty try given? Was it given because of a scrum offence? Was it given because of an individual's offence? I'm not sure. I'm sure the referee had his reasons for it but I'll let others judge whether it was because we changed props or not. It could have been coming anyway."

What pleased him most? "We stayed with it. We're getting closer to playing for 80 minutes, we have a long way to go to play for that 80 minutes but once the rain came, it was a day for smart, intelligent but positive rugby."

He pointed to Ronan O'Gara's decision to go for what would ultimately prove to be the match-winning penalty as a case in point. "Now, we had to make a decision: should Ronan try and run it out from our own half with three or four minutes to go? Sometimes you'd like it if they'd done something else but that's them, isn't it? They stayed positive, and that's why we won it."

"Ronan's a very good player, we just don't say that too often in Munster. But he is. I suppose he's unfortunate he's had to listen to me for so long, and I've seen him play for so long, so I've seen him play games like that before. Obviously today was a big day for him to play it, and I suppose that's always a sign of a good player isn't it?

"We only had three shots at goal, those two that he got and the one he missed from three yards further in. I suppose we're not great at using superlatives in Munster but it was very good."

"We've been saying this for a while, but it's a great time to be involved in Irish rugby. The standard has been set. Our pool of players is very small, we're trying to bring forward our own players, we don't buy in that many from outside, and it's just a good time to be involved."

Leicester coach Pat Howard conceded Munster's ability to take the few chances that came their way at Welford Road ultimately made all the difference.

"It was a game of very small margins. There were two chances to score for each team; we probably had more, but they took their two opportunities and we didn't take ours. That was pretty much the difference."

Howard, naturally, hasn't given up the ghost as regards the return fixture: "I've never believed that Welford Road guarantees you a win and I don't think that Thomond Park guarantees a win either."