Leinster set themselves up for a Heineken Cup quarter-final with a bonus-point win at Murrayfield that surprised even them and left Andy Robinson, the Edinburgh coach, and his senior players apologising to their supporters for an “unacceptable” first-half performance. All the Irish tries came from long range and owed as much to incompetent Scots defending as their own skills.

As Allister Hogg, the Edinburgh No 8, commented ruefully after the match, his side had dominated the opening half-hour, but failed to turn their breaks into scoring chances while handing gift tries to their opponents. As a result, the Irish visitors had the try bonus in the bag by the break and had only to sit on their advantage in the second half to claim all five points.

Michael Cheika, the Leinster coach, admitted that he had never dreamt a bonus point was possible, but warned his side that they will have to play much better if they are to defeat London Wasps at home next week.

In the end, his side won because they were the more aggressive and the more alert, while Edinburgh were ponderous in thought and deed, especially when it came to resetting their defensive line, which against players with the ability of Felipe Contepomi and Brian O’Driscoll was always likely to prove expensive.

“There was real disappointment at what we produced, especially in the first half,” Mike Blair, the captain, said. “Whenever we made a mistake they capitalised from them. They have dangerous players; we made four big mistakes and they scored four tries from them. The guys were a bit shocked and really disappointed with their own errors. If you play at this level you need to reach a certain standard week-in, week-out and we did not reach that standard.”

Robinson, his coach, was more brutal. Admitting that he had given his players a real dressing down at the break, he was clearly still seething after the match, accepting that it will now be close to impossible for Edinburgh to qualify from their pool after losing the game he had labelled their cup final.

“Everybody knows what I thought about this game, that we had to win it,” he said. “If you look at territory and possession we did well, but we had too many turnovers because runners were isolated or we had forward passes and then we started to drop off tackles. I’ve asked every player to regroup, for the sake of Edinburgh rugby we have to show that we want to play for the shirt. There is a lot of work to be done.”

The difference between the teams was summed up in the opening try, which started with Edinburgh taking the ball into a ruck, but when it squirted out the side, it was Rocky Elsom, the Australian flanker, who reacted quickest, snatching up the ball and steamrollering through Allan Jacobsen, the Edinburgh prop, to give himself a 40-metre canter to the line.

Then it was Contepomi doing much the same, squeezing between Ross Ford and Scott Newlands to feed the scoring pass to O’Driscoll before the clinching two minutes.

First, O’Driscoll stepped inside Blair to launch a counter-attack that Contepomi finished. From the restart Jacobsen found himself defending the blindside of a ruck on his own as Jamie Heaslip, Girvan Dempsey and Shane Horgan poured through, swapping passes until Horgan went over.

Suddenly a match where Edinburgh had had all the pressure and most of the ball was out of reach to tries scored from between 50 and 80 metres out.

The Scots did get it back a bit in the second half, being awarded a penalty try when Contepomi came from miles offside to intercept after James Hamilton’s 40-metre break through the middle, his second of the match, but their last chance evaporated when Phil Godman, the fly half, tried to cross kick to two men spare on the touchline but dropped it short into the welcoming arms of Bernard Jackman, the Leinster hooker.

Scorers: Edinburgh: Try: Penalty try (50min). Conversion: Paterson. Penalty goals: Godman (15), Paterson 2 (40+1, 70). Leinster: Tries: Elsom (17), O’Driscoll (25), Contepomi (36), Horgan (39). Conversions: Contpomi 2. Penalty goal: Contepomi (69).

Scoring sequence (Edinburgh first): 3-0, 3-7, 3-14, 3-19, 3-24, 6-24 (half-time), 13-24, 16-24, 16-27.

Edinburgh: C Paterson; M Robertson (rep: J Houston, 50min), H Southwell (rep: D Blair, 80+4), N De Luca, S Webster; P Godman, M Blair (capt); A Jacobsen, R Ford, G Cross, M Mustchin (sin bin: 69-79), J Hamilton (rep: B Gissing, 60), S Newlands (rep: C Hamilton, 72), A MacDonald, A Hogg.

Leinster: G Dempsey; S Horgan, L Fitzgerald, B O’Driscoll (rep: J Sexton, 80+5), R Kearney; F Contepomi (sin bin: 50-61), C Whitaker (rep: C Keane, 70); S Wright (rep: C Healy, 41), B Jackman (rep: J Fogarty, 78), C van der Linde, L Cullen (capt), D Toner (rep: T Hogan, 65), R Elsom, S Jennings, J Heaslip.

Referee: R Debney (England)

Attendance: 5,376