Ackermann rues costly early mistakes as outclassed Bulls blow another URC final

There were high hopes that the Pretoria outfit would put up a much better performance than they did in last year's URC final against the same opponent, but instead they suffered an even bigger defeat as they were exposed in almost every facet of play, with even their set-pieces largely misfiring.

Most disappointingly, the Bulls' Springbok stars were responsible for some of the most underwhelming performances of the evening.

For Ackermann, a key moment was a poor pass in the midfield that was spilled by flyhalf Handre Pollard and led to Leinster's opening try. Despite being down to 14 men at the time, the Bulls opted to carry on playing rather than taking a scrum advantage and the error cost them dearly.

"In hindsight, that's probably the lesson," Ackermann said. "When you've got a yellow card and the opposition knocks on, you take the scrum. A minute or so comes off the yellow card and you back your scrum.

"If they don't score there and the next five or 10 minutes stay scoreless, it's still 0-0 and not 7-0.

"Then shortly afterwards we lost a lineout and they scored again. Suddenly it's 12-0 and you're chasing the game."

Ackermann also rued the two first-half yellow cards shown to Springbok duo Canan Moodie and Willie le Roux - both for deliberate knock-ons - with Leinster in no mood to let the visitors off the hook for such costly errors.

"If you're going to be loose in your ball protection and you're going to concede yellow cards against a quality attacking side, and you're going to not get the momentum going, small things, small margins."

The gulf in quality between the two teams was massive, and Ackermann could do little but acknowledge it.

"Against a quality side like Leinster, those margins matter," he added. "We knew we had to be accurate and yet we weren't."