Morgan Parra, Clermont's French international scrum-half, enjoyed an imperious afternoon with the boot, missing only one shot at goal and finishing with a personal points tally of 23 points.

But the Dubliners managed a losing bonus point with a late try by replacement wing Fergus McFadden in the last minute to keep their slim hopes of a quarter-final place alive.

The Irish province suffered a 15-12 defeat to the French side and saw their 17-match unbeaten run in Europe end in the first game between the two sides in France last Sunday.

But this was another titanic tussle of Test match standard between two of the best sides in Europe and Clermont are now in pole position for a quarter-final place and are still unbeaten in this Pool.

Scrum-half Parra gave the French side an early lead with a penalty before Leinster lost hooker Richard Strauss with a nasty looking knee injury early in the opening exchanges.

Fly-half Jonathan Sexton replied with a penalty of his own to level the scores midway through the first half before Parra pushed the visitors back ahead with his second penalty.

Parra reclaimed the lead with his third penalty and French centre Wesley Fofana barged over from short-range to score his seventh try in the Heineken Cup when the visitors broke the home side's defence for the first time.

Parra added the conversion to make it 16-6 to Clermont at half-time before he and Sexton swapped penalties just after the break before Sean O'Brien was shown the yellow card for a late tackle on wing Sitiveni Sivivatu.

Clermont took full advantage of their extra man with Parra adding two more penalties, before Shane Jennings and McFadden's vital try kept Leinster's slim hopes of a quarter-final place alive.