Leinster battle to Castres draw

Leinster must wait to discover whether or not they will have a home quarter-final for the European Champions Cup after a 24-24 draw with Castres in their final pool game.

The Blues went into Friday's match knowing a win would guarantee a home draw for the quarter-finals but an unsettled performance means they face an anxious wait over the weekend.

Leo Cullen's men enjoyed a bright start and were awarded a penalty for offside inside the opening ten minutes, which Johnny Sexton had little trouble converting. Just moments later Garry Ringrose pounced on a Julien Caminati mistake to offload to Henshaw, who ran over 45 metres to touch down for the game’s opening try.

Sexton added the extras to make it 10-0 with 12 minutes on the clock and it looked as though the Irish province would push on. However, Castres recovered well from their poor start and deserved to go over the try line in the 20th minute after Sexton's miss tackle allowed the home side to challenge.

It was scrum-half Antoine Dupont who eventually went over with Julien Dumora adding the conversion.

There was a blow for Leinster when Sexton was forced off with a calf injury and Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt will be hoping the problem does not prevent him from featuring against Scotland in the RBS Six Nations opener on February 4.

Sexton was sorely missed as Castres took full advantage with Dumora kicking a penalty to level matters before David Smith went over on the back of some fantastic work by Florian Vialelle to give the Top 14 side a 17-10 lead at the interval.

Leinster wasted little time in levelling matters shortly after the restart when Henshaw got on the end of Adam Byrne's offload but once again they allowed Castres back into the game with Smith adding his second try.

With a home quarter-final at stake, Leinster pushed for another try and they finally found a way through the Castres defence with 17 minutes remaining when Dan Leavy went over for his side's third of the evening. Byrne added the extras to leave the score at 24-24 with 15 minutes left to play.

Leinster would have secured the home quarter-final had Ringrose not knocked it on when he tried to gather it and the three-time European champions were made to work hard in the closing stages to ensure the draw.

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