Cardiff Blues - 6 Leinster - 15: Gordon D'Arcy gave Leinster and Ireland the perfect Christmas gift with his timely intervention that snatched victory for the province at Cardiff Arms Park.
The Ireland centre stepped off the bench 10 minutes from time against the Blues, after more than a month out of action with a groin injury, and duly won the game with a sublime piece of footwork to make Wayne Sleep look positively flat-footed.
With only a few yards to work in, D'Arcy pounced on a wayward kick, stepped this way and that to leave his marker clutching air before veering infield to deliver the crucial inside pass that saw Girvan Dempsey gallop over for the winning try six minutes from time.
D'Arcy had only taken the field because Gary Brown had been forced to walk off in a neck brace as a precautionary measure. But it was the moment of inspiration a rain-soaked game had been crying out for.
With the score at 10-6, there had been precious little to get excited about since David Quinlan, playing in D'Arcy's position, scored the game's only other try after 42 seconds.
It was no doubt the return that both Declan Kidney and Eddie O'Sullivan had been dreaming of.
"It is obviously great to have someone of Gordon's quality back in the team after missing some important games in Europe," said Kidney.
"We were planning on bringing him on at some stage but the medical advice was that he should not play much more than he did.
"It's great when you can come onto the field and do something like that. It was class. But he knows that he still needs more game time. Starting a game is a different thing to coming off the bench late on."
However, thank goodness he did. Until then, Leinster had struggled to get their hands on the ball, or hold onto it for very long when they did, in such sodden conditions. Hence they spent almost the entire second half pinned back in their own half.
Yet even without the ball, Leinster held off a blunted Cardiff attack with relative ease. Dempsey and Guy Easterby were called upon to save tries with last-ditch tackling on the only two occasions that Cardiff seriously threatened the line.
Felipe Contepomi also returned to the outhalf role with distinction. The Argentinian controlled the first half with his pin-point accuracy, sliding the ball into the corners to keep Cardiff at bay.
Indeed it was his break that gave Leinster a dream start to the game.
Shane Byrne stole possession from the kick-off, Contepomi ghosted past opposite number Lee Thomas and chipped last-man back Mathew Nuthall for Quinlan to pick up and drive over under the posts with less than a minute on the clock.
Contepomi struck the conversion and a penalty and though Thomas brought Cardiff back into the game with two shots at goal, Leinster held firm until D'Arcy took the initiative.
CARDIFF BLUES: M Nuthall; D Dewdney, T Shanklin, J Bryant, C Morgan; L Thomas, R Powell; J Yapp, G Williams, G Jenkins, D Jones, R Sidoli, K Schubert, J Malpas, M Williams (capt). Replacements: T Davies for Shanklin (58 mins); N Macleod for Thomas (64)
LEINSTER: G Dempsey; J McWeeney, K Lewis, D Quinlan, G Brown; F Contepomi, G Easterby; E Byrne, S Byrne, R Nebbett, M O'Kelly (capt), B Gissing, A McCullen, E Miller, S Jennings. Replacements: V Costello for Jennings (54 mins); G D'Arcy for Brown (70); J Lyne for Nebbett (80)
Referee: M Changleng (Scotland).
