Leinster head coach Leo Cullen has accused Saracens of deliberately targeting Johnny Sexton during his side's Champions Cup quarterfinal victory at the Aviva Stadium.
Cullen said there were "three or four instances" during the first half of Leinster's 30-19 win in Dublin in which his fly-half was taken out either late or off the ball.
Among those was a shoulder charge from Richard Wigglesworth in the 28th minute that drew heckles from the crowd when referee Jerome Garces decided against showing the Saracens scrum-half a yellow card.
Sexton appeared to show his frustration at his treatement before the break when he kicked the ball away as he trotted back into his own half having slotted a penalty, instantly handing Marcelo Bosch the chance to cancel out the three points he had just scored.
Asked following the match if he had talked to his playmaker at half-time, Cullen said: "It's tough on Johnny because he's been played off the ball a few times in the first half. It's hard for him not to get frustrated.
"I'll have a loook back at the game and some of those clips again. There's three or four instances I can see that he's been hit, played late off the ball. I'll have to have a look back at it and how that unfolds because I think it's important to take all those things in the conext of the game."
Saracens boss Mark McCall insisted that his side did not specifically target Sexton. "There wasn't any plan to do that," he said.
"We wanted to make him make his decisions earlier, we wanted him to pass a bit sooner than he wanted to, to kick a bit earlier, but apart from that no."
Crucial to Leinster's victory -- that sets up a semifinal meeting with PRO14 rivals Scarlets -- was the hosts' ability to withstand a period of Saracens pressure before half time, and then score the first try after it.
That score arrived from man of the match Dan Leavy, following a smart interchange at an attacking ruck with fellow Ireland Grand Slam winner James Ryan.
"Dan was outstanding. He was very, very strong in the carry, he was in the thick of everything," Cullen said.
"Dan is very good in and around the ruck so he's clever at spotting those windows. We'd seen from Saracens that they presented that picture a few times this season so I thought the lads went after that well."
Defeat ends Saracens' two-year reign as European champions and also extinguishes a continental campaign that was blighted by injuries during the pool stage and included home-and-away defeats to Clermont.
"It's such a difficult competition, it's hard enough to get out of your pool," McCall said. "For us to have won it two years in a row, to go unbeaten 20 games, is something we should be proud of. But you want to forget about the past and move on in the present. It's been a very mixed campaign for us."