Fergus McFadden scored all of Leinster’s points, including three with the last kick of the game, as the RaboDirect PRO 12 leaders maintained their 10-point advantage at the top of the table by beating the Scarlets 16-13 at the RDS on Friday evening.
Dan Newton’s try saw the men from Wales lead at the break, and he also kicked a penalty to give his side a 13-10 lead before McFadden, already a try-scorer, kicked the scores that won the night.
The Scarlets started aggressively as they instantly make up ground in Leinster’s half, leading to an early converted penalty from Stephen Jones.
Centre McFadden was the man charged with equalising after Leinster won a penalty less than two minutes later, and Jones failed to restore the visitors’ advantage when he tried his luck from a huge distance out on the right but missed the target as the ball sailed to the left of the posts.
Joe Schmidt’s side did not particularly look to be at their best and they were cut open for a Scarlets try some 24 minutes in. Jonathan Edwards, with the ball in hand, found space to find the pass to Newton not too far from the posts. He then danced past weak challenges from Isa Nacewa, Fionn Carr and Dave Kearney before touching down, allowing Jones to tag over three impossible to miss points for a 10-3 advantage.
Nacewa and Madigan tried to play Leinster back into the game, but a wealth of Scarlets bodies ensured that they could not get near the line and a missed penalty from McFadden summed up their underwhelming first half as the 10-3 Scarlets lead remained until the half-time whistle.
Despite their big lead in the league table there were murmurs of unrest among the Leinster supporters at half-time, however their heroes responded in a positive manner to immediately level the match upon the restart.
Madigan played his part, as his pass to McFadden after a surge forward led to the number 12 evading a tackle from Gareth Maule and crossing the line despite being manhandled by Rhodri Jones. McFadden did his own converting to leave the game at 10-10.
However, the electricity of that second half resumption quickly powered out again as the game became something of a war of attrition, a war that that the Welsh side regained the advantage in in the 57th minute when Newton took over kicking duties from Jones and duly made it 13-10 to the Scarlets.
The McFadden show continued with a quickfire response from the Ireland man and, indeed, the player who had scored all Leinster’s points wasted one chance to win the night when, four minutes from time, he missed a second set piece to the disappointment of those in blue in Dublin.
However, he would get one more chance right on 80 minutes. And this time, with referee Nigel Owens having signalled the last play, the super McFadden kept his head to win the match for the league leaders.