The first of these sides are Leinster, who really should have put Ulster well out of sight with an excellent firsthalf performance at Ravenhill. The visitor's forwards were practically unstoppable in the opening 40 minutes.

The scrum, reinforced by the newly arrived and fit-looking Ollie Le Roux, really had the edge on their Ulster counterparts, while the dynamic ball carrying of the South African prop, Leo Cullen, Shane Jennings and Bernard Jackman constantly had Leinster on the front foot. Their line-out also looked a lot sharper and at times it was difficult to believe that we were watching a Leinster pack in action.

What they'll regret is that they came in at half-time just six points up, and even though Gordon D'Arcy's converted try after the interval gave them a 13-0, their dominance really deserved more. Thanks to Humphreys, though, they were punished for their prolificacy. The 36-year-old controlled the game from the moment he replaced Paddy Wallace, setting up Andrew Trimble's try and kicking three penalties and a conversion to earn his side a draw.

"We're not pleased to draw a home match but we did fight back well, " said Mark McCall after the game. "Hopefully the last half an hour is a bit of the turning of the corner for us.

From being 13-0 down and having not fired a shot, we took the game to them in the last half an hour."

Leinster, as you'd imagine, weren't exactly jumping for joy with their share of their spoils. "We kind of shot ourselves in the foot there towards the end, " said Jamie Heaslip, the Leinster number eight who excelled on the night. "We set ourselves a target of winning the game and we haven't, so that's not good."

Despite his side letting this victory slip through their grasp, Michael Cheika has a fair bit to be happy about.

From what we witnessed in the first half last night, his side have the potential to be the most complete and rounded Leinster team of the professional era if they can iron out a few kinks in the next few weeks. McCall, on the other hand, has mountains of work to get through if he's to make his predictable and limited side harder to figure out.

Over in Scotland, Munster will feel they could have claimed four points on Friday night against Glasgow. Paul Warwick had a quite a good game at out-half but the Australian's two missed penalties, as well as a failed conversion attempt after Lifeimi Mafi's second-half try, won't exactly encourage Declan Kidney into picking him ahead of Ronan O'Gara once the Irish out-half returns from injury.

Still, Warwick's ability to take the ball to the line and distribute from there is a useful trick, particularly with the tackle busting ability of Rua Tipoki and Mafi in midfield.

That trio combined brilliantly for Munster's second-half try but it will be interesting to see Tipoki play along alongside either Kieran Lewis or Barry Murphy, two players who'll thrive on playing off the Kiwi's straight running style.

Munster did, in the game's final quarter, show glimpses of the fast paced, multi-phased game that they'll need to play if they're to emerge from their extremely tough Heineken Cup pool but they'll have to do it a lot more frequently than they did on Friday if they're to trouble the likes of Wasps, Clermont Auvergne or Llanelli. They still have another two weeks to fine-tune.

As for Connacht, they'll be delighted that Tim Donnelly's two second-half penalties earned them a 14-14 draw against Edinburgh in Galway but in many ways they played well enough in that second period to warrant a victory.

At least Michael Bradley's side aren't bottom of the table.

That's Ulster's position for now.