Both Leinster and Connacht were victorious in Friday evening's Celtic Cup action. Leinster beat Neath-Swansea Ospreys 35-21 and Connacht overcame The Borders 26-21.
Leinster overcame a brave Neath-Swansea display to emerge triumphant after the sides' Celtic Cup battle at Donnybrook. The home team opened the scoring through Leek, who went over after some solid work by the Leinster pack. He then converted and McWeeney was the next Leinster man to cross the line. Leek promptly converted before Neath-Swansea had even registered a score. But Henson, soon opened the record with a penalty.
With Neath-Swansea's Millward sin-binned, Dillon scored a great Leinster try following a clever flick from Jennings. Leek, again, converted while Henson put over a penalty for the opposition before the interval.
Neath-Swansea began the second half brightly with a great individual try from Elvis Sevalai'l, but Henson failed to convert, dampening the visitor's comeback plans.
They were not deterred for long though. Leek managed a drop goal but Henson clocked up a spectacular individual try at the left corner and converted his effort. With newfound confidence Neath-Swansea began to pile on the pressure and were unlucky not to score.
But in the end it was easy for the home team. They registered a penalty which Leek saw over before Christian Warner intercepted to touch down for the finest try of the evening.
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A late Connacht fight back did just enough to secure victory after a very close encounter of The Borders' kind on Friday evening. The Scottish side led with just four minutes remaining, but Connacht, through Mark McHugh, took two penalty chances to edge in front as the final whistle sounded.
The Border's problems had begun even before they entered the pitch as veteran Doddie Weir was forced to withdraw from the side after coming down with flu. Their day was made no happier when moments into the clash, scrum-half Chris Custier was sidelined with a wrist injury. Despite their problems, they were the ones to register the first penalty and Connacht soon realized that it was game on.
The Irish side looked to veteran Eric Elwood for inspiration and he answered the call with a string of penalties before Morton registered again. Elwood then took a drop goal to leave the score 9-15 in favour of Connacht, but a great Borders' try had the Western men trembling. Andy Turnbull sprinted towards the Connacht line and took the first try of the evening and Connacht looked in trouble at the break.
On the restart, Morton added a drop goal to the Scottish tally to put them six in front before Connacht's McCarthy hit back with the much-needed try. McHugh missed the conversion, but he made up for the mistake by taking the last two penalties.
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