Leicester were defeated 17-10 by Leinster in Saturday’s Heineken Cup quarter-final at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, in a match which saw many of England’s internationals return to the scene of their Six Nations defeat to Ireland.

The likes of Toby Flood, Ben Youngs, Dan Cole and Tom Croft returned to the scene of the crime hoping to right the wrongs of England’s walloping, but despite having the majority of the possession and numerous chances they failed to exploit their opportunities on the score board.

Leicester head coach Richard Cockerill said: “I’ve got excuses, we have a good enough squad to come here and win. The game came down to tiny margins, and we didn’t take them so they won the game.

“We had opportunities to win the game and we created our chances to get more points, but we just didn’t take those chances and you can’t afford to do that against the best teams.”

Leicester showed glimpses of danger throughout the game, and Alesana Tuilagi had a try disallowed in the opening minutes of the second half. But Isa Nacewa’s try followed shortly, and despite replacement hooker Rob Hawkins’s 77th-minute try the Tigers were unable to claw their way back.

Cockerill continued: “We were well prepared and we came here to win. We’ve got four locks struggling with injury, and it doesn’t help us that Geordie Murphy is also injured, and that will hurt you as a squad but that wasn’t the deciding factor today.

“We’re still fresh and ready to play. We’ll pick the bones out on Monday and then focus on Gloucester at home in the Premiership next week.”