Celtic League/Leinster 27 Munster 20:Leinster managed to break the Magners League attendance record and Munster hearts in the process as they scrapped for a 27-20 victory at Lansdowne Road.
Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll proved to be the game breaker in front of a 27,252-strong crowd, as he grabbed two tries with Shane Horgan and Jamie Heaslip also crossing the visitors' whitewash in a tempestuous affair.
Reprising memories of last April's Heineken Cup semi-final, dubbed 'Black Sunday' by the Leinster fans, the provinces tore into each other right from Felipe Contepomi's kick-off.
While David Wallace and Marcus Horan squeezed over for seven-pointers at the tail end of both halves, Leinster, thanks to their thorough defence and lightning quick attack, just had a slight edge on their southern foes.
However, Leinster were forced to dig deep for their eighth league win on the trot at Lansdowne Road, as they lost prop Ronan McCormack and fly-half Contepomi to two early sin-binnings.
McCormack, seeing yellow for the third time this season, walked in the fourth minute for reckless use of the boot on Munster captain Paul O'Connell.
The fired up nature of the game escalated in the 18th minute when Contepomi, who was being held off the ball by Donncha O'Callaghan, connected with a right hook on the Munster lock.
A red card then and who knows what might have happened but Leinster survived, tallying up 17 points without reply after Ronan O'Gara's early penalty strike.
O'Driscoll got his side on the march when he shrugged off the challenge of Jeremy Manning, Munster's makeshift full-back, to waltz in from the left for a 13th minute try.
Contepomi converted and after his cooling down, added the extras to Horgan's effort on the half hour, which had been made by a Denis Hickie incision.
The Puma's only penalty of the night pushed Leinster 17-3 in front before Munster, drawing on their strengths, dug out a power play in injury time.
Three times they shoved a scrum towards the hosts' line and, on the final push, flanker Wallace dived over in the left corner.
It was certainly game on with O'Gara's humdinger of a conversion leaving it 17-10.
Yet after doing so well to come back, Munster's hopes took a nosedive when they had prop Horan sin-binned within a minute of the restart.
Worse followed when numbers out left allowed O'Driscoll to dart in for his second try and a 22-10 Leinster lead.
O'Gara offered up a penalty in reply and Leinster ground their way to their second win in seven days with Contepomi's arching pass out to the right putting Heaslip over on 77 minutes.
There was still time for Horan to make use of a close range penalty and tee up a bonus point-clinching conversion for O'Gara, who duly obliged, although nothing was going to take the shine off Leinster's prized defeat of the European champions.