It's an argument as old as the sport itself. Who deserves to win a game of rugby more – a side that wields total domination or a side that lives on the edge of the law? And what about the referee – how much help should he give the former?

The verdict of this game was that neither deserved to win. Somehow London Irish, despite taking a hammering by any measure other than the scoreline, managed to restrict Leicester to a mere 17-point lead with 15 minutes to go. Then they managed to score 17 points themselves in those final minutes to snatch an outrageous draw at Welford Road.

Geordan Murphy, Leicester's frustrated captain, put forward a case for the dominant side. "London Irish didn't seem like they'd come to play a lot of rugby," he said. In Irish's defence, though, that might have had something to do with the fact that Leicester hogged all the ball. Still, Murphy's plea on behalf of the law continued. "They seemed to have come to give away a lot of penalties. They killed a lot of our ball. They had just one yellow card. Then they raised their intensity and had some good passages of play. I thought we were to-the-letter-of-the-law clean. We rolled away on time and were compliant with the referee's wishes. As a result they got some quick ball and scored some good tries. We are probably being too disciplined."

Leicester might well question why there were not more yellow cards shown. They did not play badly at all, until the last 15 minutes, and yet not much was happening on the scoreboard. Irish conceded five penalties in the first 12 minutes and were shown that one yellow card following the sixth (without reply) in the 21st minute. And yet they carried on falling foul of the referee, as much in the second half as they did in the first, and might easily have been penalised more than they were.

Toby Booth, London Irish's head coach, conceded that his side had not been whiter than white. "If you want to compete at Welford Road you've got to be right on the borderline," he said. "I'm probably guilty for winding them up a little bit too far. Offside was the main offence for us and that means we're just looking to go and get them a little too aggressively."

No questioning, though, who scored the prettier tries. Irish did, and not only were they prettier, there were more of them, three to two. The crucial third, whose tricky conversion was landed beautifully by Tom Homer for the draw, was a horror show, Matt Garvey charging down Jeremy Staunton's shoddy attempt at a clearance. By then Leicester were imploding at the end of a game they felt they should have been winning by much more than they were. The other two, though, by Shontayne Hape and Adam Thompstone, were neat studies in pace and precision, even if Murphy might argue that his own side's fair-mindedness in defence had helped no end.

Still, there is no arguing with one fact. The side that scores the most points wins, and no points are handed out for dominance or prettiness. The draw was the right result.

Leicester Murphy (capt); Hamilton, Agulla, Smith (Staunton 57), A Tuilagi; Flood, Harrison (Grindal 63); Ayerza, Chuter, Castrogiovanni (Cole 53), Deacon (Skivington 61), Parling, Croft, Salvi (Slater 79), Waldrom.

Try Penalty, Agulla Con Flood Pens Flood 4.

London Irish Homer; Ojo (Jarvis 69), Shingler, Hape, Tagicakibau (Thompstone ht); Bowden (capt), Samson; Corbisiero (Lahiff 53), Paice (Buckland 53), Ion (Rautenbach 55), Sandford (Garvey 48), Evans, Danaher (Thorpe 63), Gibson, Sinclair.

Tries Hape, Thompstone, Garvey Con Homer 3 Pens Homer.

Referee Dave Pearson.

Attendance 20,479.