Gutsy, courageous, mentally strong, muscular, hard-working and far from pretty. Perhaps it's time to pay Leinster and especially their much criticised pack the ultimate compliment and not even use the M word.

The final, patient, 25-metre mauling try, off a take by Malcolm O'Kelly, was the ultimate expression of their pack's gathering momentum at the Stade Armandie on Saturday, against a big Agen forward unit, and also over the last three weeks.

"It was great actually and I'm particularly pleased for our forwards," admitted Denis Hickie, one of their galacticos, who all mucked in with an array of kicks, straight driving and opportunism.

"They just get constantly bad-mouthed every week; I don't know how they pick themselves up each week because they're always getting talked out of it before the game even starts.

"Yet we've come to a lot of hard places and come away with a win, as we've done today. Obviously we were under some pressure but I was delighted to see them get that last pushover try because I think it was the least they deserved."

There was also a steely maturity in the way they closed the game out over the last 30 minutes of the match.

"That's something we wouldn't be renowned for in the past," admitted coach Michael Cheika. "I thought (Chris) Whitaker had a huge influence on that. He just managed that part of the game real well and kept a cool head. We didn't go down and manage the game in France (Bourgoin) last year and came away two points shy. This year we managed the second half more.

"We had a bit of a haze in the first 10 or 15 minutes but the back 25 or 30 minutes we managed very well, and I was very happy with that."

Cheika had not been unduly concerned to be trailing at the interval: "We were pretty calm at half-time and we knew we had the game going right. Once they started fanning away from the breakdown, if we took the ball up the middle areas of the field, and got in behind them and made them chase us, then we could find the spaces."

If the pack could feel vindicated, so too, in his own smiling, modest way, could Andy Dunne for his nerveless late cameo.

Cheika was not taking any credit for what had appeared like a direct call for a "power play" from the sidelines with the introduction of Dunne, admitting perhaps he should have brought him on sooner.

The outhalf himself modestly admitted, "Having run through the first play (off lineout ball), I tried to assess it and thought this is a good time to have a shot. It was a nice feeling for sure; I was happy with it but once it went over I wouldn't care how I struck it."

Reflecting on the criticism he took for his performance in awful conditions in Ravenhill a fortnight before, and then not even being picked on the bench in the first collision with Agen, Dunne observed: "I did miss a kick in that game, and tens often get blamed for lots of things, and then sometimes a ten knocks a drop-goal over and they can get a lot of credit when the lads have worked hard for 79 minutes, so it's kind of fickle but it was satisfying to get it."

Agen's ex-All Black prop Kees Meeuws cut an acutely frustrated figure and maintained he felt as if they were as dominant at scrum as they were in the first game, no matter the configuration of Leinster's front row.

"We should have capitalised when we were on top, but it shows the class of Leinster," he said. "They had the guts to dig deep and defend it, and then in the last 20 minutes they had the hunger to take it to the next level. It showed our inexperience of playing at this level. It's very frustrating because we had the game and gave it back to them."

Even so, Meeuws conceded Leinster were the strongest side in the group.

"I think they've got the best back line in the competition and that shows. They get over the advantage line every time they touch the ball, they create options out of nothing; we got a try out of Rupeni's magic but, to be honest, I even think we got a little lucky there."