The win puts Leinster into the quarter-finals as the second-best runners-up in the competition and they will now face Toulouse in France, while Bath will take on Leicester in the last eight.

ODriscoll, who celebrated his 27th birthday on Saturday, thought he played only reasonably well just weeks after returning from the shoulder injury he suffered in a spear tackle while captaining the British & Irish Lions in the first Test match against New Zealand last summer.

He said: This is my fourth full game back and I struggled in that last 10 minutes. I will be much better for playing in such a high-intensity game and I feel a little closer to where I want to be.

In parts, it was some of the best rugby we have played this season. I felt a bit disappointed at the end in the way we ran out of gas but if you are playing such a high-octane game, you expect to run out of gas sometime.

There was huge pressure on our forwards before the game to match Baths pack and I think they did that with aplomb. Our scrum was excellent and the work rate was good especially in that last 10 minutes when we were under pressure.

What we were doing was trying to get ourselves into the last eight and our sole goal was to put ourselves into the knock-out stages.