After a season where the West Wallians caused more than one or two shocks, Peel’s side’s journey would end after a fighting performance against the tournament favourites.
Things had looked ominous for the Scarlets when the Irish province, who finished the regular season top of the table, came out the blocks quickly to open up an early advantage.
Irish wing James Lowe’s score in the corner in the opening exchanges, and British & Irish Lions centre Jamison Gibson-Park’s try within the first ten minutes of the contest, raced the home side into a 12-point lead.
However, Scarlets hit back through Wales duo Tom Rogers fine stretching try and Blair Murray’s 80-metre kick-and-chase finish before half-time to keep alive hopes of a shock win in front of a crowd of 12,879 with only a point in it at the break.
Any sign of a Leinster collapse soon ended though after the re-start with centre Jamie Osborne scoring not long after the restart after a TMO review.
Whilst man-of-the-match Hugo Keenan stretched sealed the Irish side’s victory after Scarlets prop Alec Hepburn was sin-binned for playing the ball on the ground at a ruck.
Replacement hooker Dan Sheehan charged down a kick to give Jordie Barrett the opportunity to send Keenan through for Leinster’s fourth and decisive final try.
Johnny Williams’ worked his way through for a consolation ten minutes from time to try to breathe new life into Scarlets’ challenge, but it would be Leinster who would hold on to face Glasgow in the last four of the competition next weekend.
“I’m proud of the season as a whole,” said Peel after the contest.
“They are a quality side, and I think everything had to go our way today. We were in the fight, but we probably weren’t as accurate as we could have been in certain areas.
“Our big thing is we wanted to compete hard, and I think we did that to the last minute of the last game.
“It was a tough game, and we were in it at 15-14 at half-time. I thought then probably in the first 10/15 minutes of the second-half they got it right.
“They put a ball in the air and got after us a bit and we couldn’t quite recover. We didn’t have enough of the ball in the right areas if I am honest with you – their set piece was strong.
“I am proud of the effort and commitment we showed. This team are on the start of a journey, they are young and enthusiastic and want to learn.
“They are obviously heartbroken in the changing room there, but there is a lot more to come from this team.
“We have worked hard to compete to get to this position and compete. I think we embraced that today.
“It is where we want to be [competing with the best]. I said from the start, this club means a lot to the people it represents, and I think, for us, we want to be competing hard.
“We want to keep growing now. I don’t think it is a fluke that we are here, we have worked hard for it. If you look at the performances throughout the season, we’ve been competitive.
“If the games we’ve lost out on in the dying moments had gone our way, we could have been higher up the table.
“The boys have now had a taste for it, and we will come back stronger next year and compete harder.”
[Lead image: Scarlets Rugby]
