EUROPEAN CUP:Perpignan 26 Leicester 20 DAN CARTER can afford to buy his own drinks nowadays but Leicester had every reason to toast the world's most expensive player at the final whistle last night.

Losing bonus points are often priceless in the closing stages of Heineken Cup pool qualification and Carter's eagerly-awaited first game for Perpignan may yet be remembered less for the 16 points the debutant scored than the two penalty chances he failed to convert.

Such are the fine margins of European success, as Carter will appreciate when he studies the Pool Three table today.

While Leicester may have been replaced at the top by the Ospreys, they will expect to collect five points at home to Treviso next month and could even wriggle through if they lose narrowly in Swansea on the final weekend of the qualifying campaign.

If it would be harsh to blame Carter alone for letting the Tigers off the hook, but there are fewer places to hide when you are earning a whopping €39,000 a game.

Either way the decision to give the imported Kiwi general the man-of-the-match award was a slightly generous one, particularly as his team-mate Gerrie Britz scored two good tries and was part of an excellent home backrow that gave the Tigers a seriously hard time in the first half.

Carter, for his part, was simply relieved to have come through unscathed, having been unceremoniously upended by the England scrum-half Harry Ellis in the final quarter.

Ellis was merely warned for hoisting the number 10 skywards, tipping him over and dropping him head-first but Carter was less inclined to brush the incident aside.

"It was pretty scary up in the air and not being totally in control of where I was going to land," he said.

The citing commissioner will now have to determine whether the incident would have merited a red card, in which event Ellis may find himself with a serious case to answer.

It will not be the last time this season that Carter finds himself an on-field target, legal or otherwise, but there is little doubt that Perpignan will benefit from his calm assurance as long as he stays fit and healthy.

The Catalans have been crying out for someone at number 10 with a little bit of oval-ball savoir faire and Carter will grow more influential once he settles into his new environment, not to mention his club's egg-and-bacon striped socks.

"Now I've got my first game out of the way it's a huge weight off my shoulders and a big relief," he admitted.

"Overall I was pleased with the way the game went although missing those kicks was disappointing. They were pretty important ones as well."

Such is Carter's current profile in Roussillon that a small crowd even gathered outside in the cold simply to watch him eat his post-match meal.

There was also a rare hush around the stadium as he lined up his first penalty in the 12th minute, with the 26-year-old clearly conscious of the local expectation swirling around him.

It was a slightly stabbed kick but over it went, proof if it were needed that Carter possesses nerve as well as skill.

Perpignan, however, remain a side who switch on and off with frustrating regularity and they will wonder why they did not win this game in a much more emphatic fashion.

Britz's first try, which saw the flanker burst through Irish international Geordan Murphy's tackle and surge past Scott Hamilton, gave the home side a flying start and the Tigers, 16-3 down at the time, owed much to a neat well-taken try down the blindside from Tom Croft shortly before half-time.

There was still time for Carter to miss a 40-metre penalty from almost in front of the posts and, shortly after the break, he miscued another trickier attempt from a wider angle.

Initially it seemed it would matter little, with Britz reacting quickest when an attempted clearance from the visitors' French scrumhalf Julien Dupuy was charged down.

The complacent mood swiftly evaporated, though, when Leicester launched a swift counter-attack of their own and Hamilton, a rather less celebrated ex-All Black than the revered number 10, stretched over.

Perpignan might have had a third try themselves had Lewis not also spotted a fractional forward pass and Leicester, in the end, were reasonable value for their bonus point.

During the winter in these parts a biting wind called the Tramontane blows down from the mountains and this result may ultimately give the Catalans equal cause to shiver.

If things don't go as planned their imported Napoleon may soon have to concentrate his efforts on the domestic front.

PERPIGNAN:Burger; Plante (Geli, 73), Manas (Grandclaude, 55), Mermoz, Candelon; Carter, Durand; Chobet (Pulu, 61), Guirado, Mas (capt), Olibeau (Alvarez Kairelis, 55), Hines, Britz (Perez, 60), Tonita, Chouly.

LEICESTER: G Murphy; Hamilton, Hipkiss (Rabeni, 67), Mauger, Smith; Flood, Dupuy (Ellis, 69); Ayerza, Kayser (Chuter, 57), White, Corry (capt), Kay (Wentzel, 59), Croft, Moody, Crane. Attendance 14,466

Referee: A Lewis (Ireland)

- Guardian Service