Furbank admits Saints tried to 'force things that weren't really there' during Leinster defeat

Phil Dowson's men conceded two tries in the opening 16 minutes of the match at a sold-out Croke Park as Leinster capitalised on Saints errors.

But the black, green and gold kept battling and they were just three points down with five minutes to go.

However, they had left themselves too much to do as Leinster just about held out to secure a place in the Investec Champions Cup final on May 25.

Furbank said: “First half we didn’t look after the ball well enough, probably tried force things that weren’t really there to start off with but we calmed down after the first 20 minutes and created enough opportunities to score more points and we did.

“Once Tom (Seabrook) scored that try in the corner we definitely felt like we had given ourselves a really good shot.

"It was actually quite calm messages, to be honest. We spoke about getting back into their half again and putting pressure on.

“They sort of shut up shop with 20 minutes to go, giving us a lot of kicks, so it was about securing that and then putting our game on the field… we came close.

"We put ourselves in the situation where we could have potentially should have won that game.”