Boss ‘chuffed’ for his old team-mates

“It’s going to be a special occasion for me,” says Boss, who more than justified Joe Schmidt’s surprise decision to start him in Sunday’s Clermont cliffhanger.

“I’m chuffed for my old team. They’ve worked hard. It’s great to have two Irish teams in the final and I’m sure it’s going to be a great day in Twickenham.

“I saw the emotion on all the Ulster boys’ faces on Saturday after their match. That’s going to bring something into it.

“But we haven’t had a chance to think about that yet. We have to regroup after this one before we even start contemplating Ulster. And then we have another couple of weeks’ matches to get through as well.

Fighting

“We’re fighting for the league as well and that’s important to us as a group. There’s a lot of rugby to be played. None of our teams will look far ahead and we’ll focus on performing week in, week out, because we all want to make that final team.

“I was in touch with a few of them during the week, especially with Chris Henry, because I know how desperately he wanted to be a part of what happened on Saturday.

“I’m good mates with a few of them. They’ve come a long way in this competition. They had a tough pool as well and to get to the final from there is a good effort by them. We’ll keep in touch with them in the next few weeks.

“We all watched it in the hotel last night, but we’ll try to break it down a bit more and see where we can beat them. I suppose their game could have gone either way really.”

Meanwhile, Clermont winger Julien Malzieu has declared that his side lost out to the “reigning champions of Europe and, I think, the European champions this year.”