Leinster ground out an 18-0 win over Benetton in a physical affair in northern Italy in the final round of the Heineken Champions Cup.
The victory sees Leinster finish with six wins out of six in Pool 1 with a total of 28 points. As a result, Leo Cullen's men will go through as top seed in the Champions Cup quarter-finals.
The opening quarter was a scoreless but feisty affair, with Benetton controlling most of the territory and possession.
The hosts had a couple of options to go for the posts from penalties but opted to go to the quarter from the boot of former Ireland international Ian Keatley.
However, the Italians could not make the breakthrough with Leinster managing to keep the game scoreless despite being camped metres from their own try-line.
Ross Byrne finally opened the scoring after 34 minutes, putting the visitors up 3-0.
That's how it ended in the first half in 40 minutes of action that only rugby purists would enjoy.
FULL-TIME! A home quarter-final and number one seeding secured! #BENvLEI #JoinTheRoar pic.twitter.com/zXQFBmBFK4
— Leinster Rugby (@leinsterrugby) January 18, 2020
The second half began how the first ended but Leinster did stretch their lead to six points through another Byrne penalty on 53 minutes.
Leinster finally got over the try line through Caelan Doris after 59 minutes, although plenty of credit must go to Garry Ringrose for a lovely no-look pass in the build-up to the try.
The visitors grew in confidence from then on, with substitute hooker James Tracy crashing over from the back of a rolling maul.
That left it Benetton 0-18 Leinster with 10 minutes to go in Treviso, with Leinster's place as first seed in the Champions Cup quarter-finals secured.
It also makes it 16 wins in a row for the reigning Pro14 champions, a record for any top-flight European side in one season.
It wasn't a perfect performance from the four-time European champions, but for now, their international players can turn their attention to the Six Nations opener against Scotland.
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