[caption id="attachment_70513" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Brian O'Driscoll returns after injury."]
BRIAN O'DRISCOLL, Leo Cullen and new signing Brad Thorn all came through Leinster's RaboDriect Pro12 game against the Ospreys at the RDS last Friday night without any problems.
That's the good news. The bad is that Leinster somehow managed to lose 23-22, their first defeat in 20 games, after leading the 16-6 at halt-time.
They still lead the table by eight points but coach Joe Schmidt was clearly annoyed by the nature of the defeat. He questioned the decision to award the Ospreys a late try and the controversial match-winning conversion from Dan Bigger.
Bigger's conversion landed on top of the upright but was ruled okay. Earlier, an outstanding try from out-half Ian Madigan and some good goalkicking from Fergus McFadden had appeared to put Leinster in a match winning position.
On the subject of O'Driscoll, Cullen and All-Black Thorn, Schmidt was "delighted." He said: "Brian looked very sharp for someone who hasn't played for so long. Brad put in a great performance, considering he is still fitting into our system, while Leo also did well."
Munster moved into second place following their hard-earned 20-16 away victory over Connacht at the Sportsground. Connacht were the better side for much of the game but two well taken second half tries from Simon Zebo and replacement Tommy O'Donnell gave Munster the victory.
Ulster moved to fifth spot in the table with a 27-23 victory over Treviso in Italy. But it took a try from Ian Whitten in injury time to give them what could yet prove to be a vital win in their bid to make the play-offs.
