Leinster - 14 Perpignan - 21:RUGBY/European Cup Semi Final: This wasn't in the script. On a crushing anti-climactic weekend for Irish rugby, it was bad enough that Munster didn't make the dream final, worse still that Leinster didn't reach their pre-ordained station in the May 24th decider at Lansdowne Road.

Instead it will be an all-French affair between Toulouse and Perpignan, and however many sleepless nights the ERC will have in devising ways of selling that one, it will be nothing compared to the nightmares Leinster will be having.

At least Munster players and management were consoling themselves that they had given their all and, in their own minds, played to the utmost of their individual abilities. Leinster, meanwhile, were kicking themselves that they reserved their worst performance of the season for their biggest game of the season. And so their season ended. Just like that, cruelly and definitively.

They could thus have few complaints about the nature of yesterday's 21-14 defeat to Perpignan, for the biggest one was with themselves. Perpignan spoiled effectively in the scrums, freely giving away tap penalties, and the line-outs, denying Leinster their essential set-piece base.

But they invited Leinster into the game, and looked vulnerable to a pressurised kicking game if Leinster had one - which they don't - and not until Aidan McCullen was a late introduction did Leinster generate any momentum closer in. Leinster's nerves became more frayed when a hobbling Brian O'Driscoll - reduced to half capacity before half-time - departed with sciatica which affected his hamstring just after Perpignan had drawn level at 11-11 in the 65th minute, and ultimately, Leinster lost their way.

After a distinctly unexceptional pre-match build-up, it was a flat day all round, a somnolent atmosphere pervading around Lansdowne Road, especially by comparison to the first semi-final. For the most part the 37,000 crowd - of which more than 37,000 were supporting the home team - sat back in expectation and waited to be sated, and much like the team only gave full vent to their feelings when Leinster were staring defeat in the face in the end game.

It was only then too that Leinster began to play with a real sense of tempo and continuity. Before then, their performance appeared riddled with the customary stresses of a semi-final as well as the additional baggage of knowing this was the chance of a lifetime and they were widely expected to appear in a 'home' final.

"Our error rate was way too high right through the entire fixture and you can't do that at this level," conceded a palpably depressed Matt Williams. "It was the biggest day of the year for us and it was the one day we didn't really perform," he added, though he denied that their "imprecision" was anything to do with nerves.

In an error-strewn game, Perpignan weren't a whole lot better, but they were typically dogged, defended aggressively, had the more reliable set-piece platform and an assured controller at the helm in Australian Manny Edmonds, who steered his side home with a man-of-the-match performance. They've defied expectations in coming out of their pool ahead of Gloucester, and now in winning away to both Llanelli and Leinster. Good luck to them.

There were other mitigating factors, not least the lack of a set-piece platform, for unlike most sides in the modern game Leinster play a running game off set plays. Their scrums were continually the source of indirect penalties as Perpignan popped up or bored in, but as Reggie Corrigan repeatedly pointed out to referee Nigel Williams, tap penalties were no used to them, and to compound this Perpignan encroaching and engaging within 10 metres and with impunity.

"Their tactic just seemed to be to deny us any scrum platform," bemoaned Matt Williams, while not saying this was the reason they lost, though he had a fair point when stating that "we had two scrum platforms in the whole game and we scored off one of them".

Ironically, given Perpignan sustained two other yellow cards this was their greatest crime, but it went largely unpunished, with repeat offender Mas hardly even warned by Williams. Party poopers and spoilers par excellence, all told, Perpignan have incurred nine sinbinnings this season.

Another huge factor, again, was the below par goalkicking of Brian O'Meara, which also affected the rest of his game. This game was perhaps the ultimate proof that not only he is not a natural goalkicker, but that it places undue pressure on him.

With a poor strike ratio of just 56 per cent going into this game, it made the second minute decision to opt for an angled kick at goal in a typically capricious Lansdowne Road wind factor rather than go for the corner more puzzling.

Unsurprisingly, O'Meara missed, and compounded this by hooking an eminently kickable short-range penalty wide a minute later, ultimately finishing with two from seven.

"The players have got to make those decisions on the field," Williams commented, but when pressed admitted "I wouldn't have minded kicking to touch. It was a fairly swirling wind. The wind was actually coming from the west stand and hitting the east stand, but on the pitch was actually blowing on your face into the west stand. It was very difficult kicking conditions, no doubt about that."

So it will be Toulouse v Perpignan at Lansdowne Road on May 24th. It may indeed be a cracking good game. The Perpignan chairman Marcel Dagrenat said he welcomed the final being in Dublin, although their Canadian, ex-Ulster schools number eight Phil Murphy admitted: "I'm probably one of the few French players who wants to see the final at Lansdowne Road. For me it is a mythical stadium and I know there will be good craic afterwards."

With only 6,000 tickets sold in advance, ERC chairman Derek McGrath reiterated that the final will definitely not be moved to France. "It will now be a major marketing challenge."

It'll be that alright.