The BIG thing is the fitness level. Of course, there's a lot more to it than that, but if there's one strong message coming through from the Irish provinces' early salvos in the Heineken European Cup it is that they now have the means to last the 80 minutes like never before.

Imagine, then, what might happen if they too were fully-fledged professionals, as their opponents are. Leinster coach Mike Ruddock, in his subtle way, was quick to use last night's platform to hammer this one home.

"I wouldn't be absolutely 100 per cent sure of Leicester's circumstances, but I would have thought just about everyone of their squad is full-time. We're still essentially a part-time squad at the moment and I was very very pleased with our fitness levels.

"Possibly a little bit of not used to being in front and winning games led to a bit of tension towards the end. Certainly fitness wasn't a problem."

Leinster manager Jim Glennon added another twist on the fitness issue. "The new fitness levels show how important the lack of fitness levels over the last number of years in Irish rugby were. When we have fitness levels to compete, we have the talent and we have the skills to compete."

They had learnt, too, one important mental lesson from the Toulouse defeat, with a little help from Connacht. "I said then and I still believe that I don't think we believed in ourselves last week, which was understandable given that we only had five of last season's team. So many of them didn't have the experience to believe. They got the belief last Saturday (against Toulouse) and whatever belief they got was confirmed for them by Connacht's result (beating Northampton) on Tuesday. That was a huge boost for everybody."

Ruddock is perhaps used to these sort of days, as a coach with Swansea and now in no time at all with Leinster (104 days to be precise), as he tends to create them wherever he goes.

But all in all, quite a day. "I have been involved since 1975 and I have never seen a reaction like that from a Leinster crowd," said Glennon. "It's what we have been dreaming of and what we have been aspiring to, and to see Donnybrook invaded like that and to have the support we had, certainly gave the lads a huge lift."

Donnybrook has never seen anything like this before, and with their progressive marketing it will never be the same again.

While heralding this as "our biggest win," Glennon warned "it's one swallow, it doesn't make a summer. We go on to Milan in a good position and we are now contenders in this group. The attitude that Mike has introduced to the group in such a short period of time is a tribute to him."

Leicester coach Bob Dwyer, typically, wore the defeat with a smile and was generous in his praise of Leinster. "They did the things well that we thought they'd do well. They played with a huge amount of spirit and they tackled really well. But there's more to it than passion. There's more to tackling than spirit, you have to get into the position to tackle to make sure you tackle the right guys and they did.

"All facets of their game were quite good. Maybe we got a bit of ascendancy in the line-outs as the game wore on but that was pretty much it. I thought they (Leinster) attacked well and took their try excellently, the guy really sliced through for the try. I suppose the difference between this and year's match (which Leicester won 27-10) was that Leinster played a lot better in the last 20 minutes this year."