Leinster survive Saints fightback to reach Champions Cup final

The drive for five is still alive, but Leinster's place in the Investec Champions Cup final went right down to the last breath.

On a day when James Lowe scored a hat-trick and Jamison Gibson-Park produced a performance for the ages, it was captain Caelan Doris who came up with the match-winning moment, his defensive turnover in the final 90 seconds giving Leinster a nervy 20-17 win over the Northampton Saints at a sold-out Croke Park.

This game looked all but over when Lowe cruised in for his third try just three minutes into the second half.

The Leinster wing was in prolific form, but all three tries were inspired by those around him. Twice in the opening 15 minutes Gibson-Park's remarkable rugby IQ laid on tries for Lowe, while his third came after a series of marvelous offloads by Tadhg Furlong, Jamie Osborne and Dan Sheehan.

Northampton’s only points by that stage came from the boot of Fin Smith, whose penalty in the dying stages of the first half had the scores at 20-3 with less than half an hour to play.

Leinster had three weeks to prepare for this game, but it was the Saints who looked battle-hardened, and grew better and better as the game wore on, with their array of exciting backs starting to find holes in what had been an aggressive and mean Leinster defence.

It helped their cause that Ross Byrne was struggling to find his radar. The out-half missed three of his five kicks at goal, the third coming just after Northampton had pegged things back to 20-10 through a George Hendy try.

His opposite number, Smith, was having no such trouble, and when he slotted a touchline conversion following Tom Seabrook's try with seven minutes left to play, it left the game on a knife-edge.

In the end, Phil Dowson’s side just fell short,