LEO CULLEN exudes a calm, thoughtful presence. Moments after putting in a traditional grafting performance, typically volunteering for most of the blue-collar work of the forward exchanges, he articulated his feelings on a second successive victory in the Heineken Cup.

“I thought we showed pretty good intent for the first 20 minutes and controlled the game pretty well,” says Leinster’s captain.

“After that it all got a bit tit-for-tat and the game lost its shape, but it was great – particularly off the end of last week when I thought the forwards came off second-best against a good Exeter outfit – that we could just control the game at the end and get over the line.

“It’s four points away from home and we can just move on towards December now. Keeping in control of your destiny is a big thing.

“We can’t control what the other teams are doing at the minute. We just need to keep plugging away ourselves and we have a few guys coming back from injury as well, which will be great.

“That adds a competitive edge to the squad and we have a few Rabo [Direct Pro12] games before a bit of a break. Some guys will go off for November internationals and then we’re all be back together and that will be a crunch period against Clermont.”

What is evident is that Leinster’s experience in the last four years stands to them, as does Cullen’s intelligent direction.

“Yeah, there were a few key things at the end and it is a great luxury to have when you sniff that opportunity.”

He had a word too for the man of the match. “Mike [Ross] was in the zone today; he got a hard time after last week’s performance, but he came back really strong this week. We sniffed that opportunity (in the scrum) and just went for it.

“It’s important to be clinical like that, to spot a weakness we need to go after and I’m just pleased to get the win. It wasn’t pretty at times but we got the job done.”