Leinster coach Michael Cheika praised his side for taking their chances after they ran out 39-7 winners over Scarlets at the RDS.
After racking up three unanswered tries in the first half, it took only six minutes of the second half to secure the prized bonus point when centre Gordon D’Arcy snuck through a gap to finish behind the posts.
The reigning Heineken Cup champions added three more tries to their tally — another from D’Arcy and two from Brian O’Driscoll — putting a gloss on their third straight European win which keeps them level on points at the top of Pool Six with London Irish, the only side to beat them in this season’s competition.
Although Scarlets competed strongly in the first half, their heads dropped after half-time and Leinster were allowed to run riot, attacking from every area of the pitch.
Cheika conceded that his side’s finishing was the vital factor, saying: “I think that we probably took the chances that appeared to us and it made it a bit easier than I thought it would be, because the Scarlets are a pretty dangerous team when they get going.
“We made a few elementary errors early on, gave them some opportunities and we were lucky they didn’t take them and then we were able to get our shape together.”
Despite losing prop CJ van der Linde, who limped off with a calf injury in the first half, the Leinster scrum and lineout still dominated throughout the match.
“CJ’s been having a bit of calf trouble. He’s been operating with a bit of a bleed in it these last two weeks but he’ll get a scan on his calf and see how bad it is,” explained Cheika.
“We had a good defensive scrum, our defensive lineout was active as well. I thought maybe when they got close to our line, we didn’t muscle up quite well and we gave them a try which was a bit poor.
“We’ve only given three tries away in Heineken Cup this year and we don’t want to give any more away.”
Pool Six is poised on a knife edge and is expected to come down to the final round-six match between London Irish and Leinster at the Madjeski Stadium next month, but Cheika was careful not to write off the Irish province’s next contest against Brive at home.
“When we lost against London Irish in the first pool game in October, I thought it was going to be a war where everybody stares everybody down,” he said.
“We have to maintain that in the next match against Brive when it does come. We have to focus on beating the next opponent and we’ll see what happens after that.”
