Leicester’s director of rugby, Geoff Parling, was frustrated that his side failed to capitalise from a strong position to lose to Leinster at Mattioli Woods Welford Road.

Despite a spirited effort against error-ridden opponents, the hosts came away with nothing and remain pointless at the bottom of Pool 3 after their opening two fixtures.

Leicester earned a surprising 15-6 lead at the break, thanks partly to a scorching 75 metre kick-and-chase try by wing Adam Radwan. But a missed penalty from Billy Searle at the start of the second half and a soft try for Jamison Gibson-Park shifted the momentum and ultimately – despite being far from their best – the Irish province were deserved winners. Gibson-Park and Dan Sheehan scored Leinster’s tries, with Harry Byrne kicking three penalties and a conversion. Sam Prendergast also added a conversion.

Radwan and his fellow wing Ollie Hassell-Collins crossed over for Leicester’s tries as Searle added a penalty and a conversion.

“I’m incredibly proud of the effort as our defence was outstanding, the best performance of the season in that area, but I’m frustrated as the game was there for us,” Parling said.

“A lot of people had written us off before the game and it would have been an incredible day had we won as Leinster haven’t lost a European pool game for four years. Going toe to toe with them gives our fans hope and belief for the future but we need to double down on our accuracy.

The way the competition is set up, we are still in with a chance of progressing.”

Jamison Gibson-Park touches down in the corner for Leinster’s first try. Photograph: Ashley Western/Colorsport/Shutterstock

It was a different story in the Irish camp as they now have nine points from their opening two fixtures and that should already be enough for them to progress to the next round of the competition.

Leinster had to cope with the loss before kick-off of prop Tadhg Furlong, and head coach Leo Cullen said: “I’m very pleased how we stuck at it, although if we had taken our opportunities, we would have made it easier for ourselves. It’s an incredibly tough place to come and although we played with great intensity, they were very dogged and made life difficult for us.

“We had a lot of early disruption with Tadhg feeling unwell on leaving the hotel and then losing two players [to injury] in the first 11 minutes. We then had a try harshly ruled out but we showed great composure even though we were trailing 15-6 at half-time.”