How many of you were wishing well for Leinster and then expressed the same sentiment as the little old lady?

On Friday night they were once again the masters of their own destiny. The hangman's noose was pinching tight around their Gregory Peck as the Magners League run-in concluded. But mainly thanks to their competitive ineptitude the trapdoor stayed shut and they lived to fight for the pot at the death.

Four minutes into the game I knew there would be no silverware. All I could think of was Ray Flynn, the prominent Irish miler of the '80s. It normally took four minutes for the race to finish and Flynn would be at or near the front as they came around the final bend. Suddenly he'd look like he was wearing concrete leg warmers in quicksand.

It is quite hard to quantify how badly Leinster played as they were playing against a team who were a mirror image of themselves. It was galling, though, that Leinster made Cardiff look like a bunch of wizened gun-slingers who were so confident of victory that they said they would 'draw' lefthanded even before the gunfight started. It was even worse that Leinster tried hard to make it work but I haven't seen them as clueless in a long time. Even against Munster in 2006 and Wasps last month they managed to string a few phases together.

A lot of what happened had much to do with what went before and what happens next. Girvan Dempsey, Shane Horgan, Gordon D'Arcy and Denis Hickie can go and get a litre or two of Piz Buin until they have to head to Spala in Poland. Rob Kearney, Trevor Hogan, Bernard Jackman, Malcolm O'Kelly, Keith Gleeson and Jamie Heaslip head off to Bargie-land. So does Felipe. Reggie Corrigan, Will Green and Sir Guy of Gisbourne roll off the conveyor belt.

Stephen Keogh heads to glorious Exeter.

It is significant what is going through your head after a long season. So as a match which effectively decides whether you win something or not starts to turn on you, everyone starts to think differently. The elite think, 'great, I have a few weeks off.' The tourists think, 'Christ, another two weeks of this and then we get put through the mangle in Argentina.' The Argentine thinks, 'well, I have finished my medical exams, I'm going home and then I'm going to put Ireland through the mangle in two weeks' time'.

Stephen Keogh is probably wondering where Exeter is and Reggie and Co are wondering what the hell to do next.

Leinster men played like a loose collection of individuals on Friday. When a team is tired, it is attacked by ideas it conquered long ago. It was terrible to see some of Leinster's failings on Friday night manifest themselves in such transparent fashion, but tiredness can only account for some of it. The coaching staff, spearheaded by Michael Cheika (right), have to put their hands up. I have always thought Cardiff coach Dai Young was a dodo, yet they knew exactly what to do against Leinster. There was no unthinkable complexity to it . . . you can stop Leinster playing without troubling your cerebellum too much.

Leinster, pre-Christmas, prided themselves on a couple of performance traits.

One was that they could perform in all conditions. They had a game-plan for rain, sun and wind and, secondly, they could mix up their play book and strategy.

They could play conservative, percentage or Harlem Globetrotters and they could pick and choose it when they wanted to so that it would be difficult to video analyse them before the game. Their run-in on the last six games demonstrated that they had lost this facility, with even the 31-0 victory against the Border Receivers thoroughly unconvincing.

And now, as they finish out the season in a trough, I would make the point that you can't expect to win unless you know why you lose. Leinster lost against Cardiff because Cardiff knew how to shut them down. Even at half-time, with a score of 13-6, the game was there to be won but Leinster didn't change their gameplan or, worse still, were instructed by the coaches to continue as they had done in the first half. Game, set, match.

I have never seen Leinster lose their shape offensively as badly as they did on Friday. I am a proponent of aggressive and constructive presentation of the ball, the key to quick ruck ball. Sometimes as Leinster struggled to get going, the ball lay there for no more than a second. But it is not worth a fiddlers if all you are doing is committing two men . . . the tackler and a halfinterested pillar . . . the rest of the line were shuffling crossfield. Width for width's sake gets you nowhere. Why couldn't Leinster's management change things? Every time Leinster ran the ball they put themselves under pressure.

Change the point of attack, let your scrum half box-kick, keep the pack going forward, use the maul and pick and go when it collapses.

Instead the pack played with a degree of strenuous laziness, going back to rescue dropped ball in midfield and never having enough wit or focus to follow and support Jamie Heaslip's bullocking interventions. A few years ago the Leinster pack was able to recognise the value of Victor Costello and make hay when he charged forward but nobody seems to be able to profit from Heaslip's running.

The pack needs impetus . . . it also needs a scrum. Roly Meates has been mothballed and you now see the effect of his absence. Why was Roly side-lined?

Matt Williams had many deficiencies in his coaching make-up but his defensive organisation was excellent. Leinster's defensive ability has waned.

This team/squad has regressed and there are some unsavoury characteristics beginning to schmooze in. Ill-discipline, high penalty counts, yellow cards, error levels, bitching to the ref. If the team is serious about itself, these traits will have to be eradicated.

The coaching staff will have to think a little harder because five months is a long time for a team to be misfiring.

The team failed this season because, at the death, desire and playing focus were absent. In the end whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right.

Leinster thought they couldn't.