"Credit to Clermont for that first 50 or 60 minutes, they played fantastically well," England international Flood told Sky Sports. "We let it go during that first hour and we are really disappointed they got that far ahead of us. We kept battling and in the end we are disappointed not to come away with anything. It is a very important game next weekend. Our pride has been dented, and it is important we bounce back."

Clermont's Scotland international flanker Jason White admitted the French side showed a lack of composure during the closing stages. "We should have closed the game out," he said. "We were quite a few points clear but we took our foot off the pedal. There was a lack of control and we need to improve our composure. To score 40 points though, is great. It was a good performance, the best I have been involved with here. Leicester are a quality team and they did come back strongly, but we can take a lot out of the game."

"It was win or bust. We gave away so many soft tries in the first half that we had to really go for it in the second," said Kingston. "We were asleep first half. I don't know, but I do know we conceded a lot of soft points. We spoke at the break not about mistakes but about reminding the boys that what we'd seen is not us and that we'd switched off at times.

"They had four chances and they scored four tries. It's been a massively disappointing Heineken Cup campaign, but we should warn Sale that we won't travel all the way up there next weekend without being competitive."

Sale director of rugby Kingsley Jones brushed off suggestions his side were rank outsiders, emphasising his team's ability to defend well and score on the break. "It could have been 40-30 to us, but our discipline second half wasn't good enough," he said. "We knew we could score tries against this team, as we showed in the first half. Turnovers provided the chance to counter, and while our set-piece was under pressure, we achieved a terrific win in a wide-open pool. We're seen as underdogs, and I don't mind that one bit. Struggling Sale, I keep hearing. Fine, but we also have a real chance of reaching the quarter-final.

"It was very disappointing," he said. "We were up against a high-quality side, but we made a lot of errors and they punished us. We were second best, there is no doubt about that. We talked beforehand about not giving Biarritz any momentum, but that is exactly what we did. You can't concede nine penalties in the first 20 minutes, like we did. We've just got to lick our wounds - a lot of our players will have grown up today."