Alan Quinlan

And Ulster fans, and maybe Dara has a view on this, would you take winning the Challenge Cup over top eight or be playing in the knockout stages?

Because it does guarantee you Europe and I think that's the most important thing for the likes of Ulster, Munster and Connacht.

It's a big situation to be in Europe and an important one.

against Munster this weekend away then you have the top two to play in Glasgow and Stormers so it doesn't get much tougher I think they will make the playoffs I think the Stormers and Glasgow home games the last two even though they're difficult

they'll get results there, they'll get points there.

But it's incredible that Leinster are in third on 51 points and you go to ninth, Connaughton 44, seven points, they're separating between third and ninth in the league.

I wasn't suggesting that Ulster don't make it.

I think any of the teams there, bar Leinster, they'll be in.

But I think the lines, they're in 48.

But Ulster, Munster, Cardiff and Bulls and Connacht, there's five players there.

There's one team going to miss out there.

And that's the reality.

And you don't want to be that team that misses out.

For and against, Colm, if you need to get a performance and try and build a little bit more cohesion, yes.

Yes, traditionally, we would have always done that when I played myself.

The week before the big game or the big quarterfinal or semifinal or whatever, you would try and play the strongest team to get that unity and stuff like that.

Last Friday morning, we were speaking about Leinster sending the team they were sending to Belfast and thought it was a little bit...

risky and that they needed wins and this was going to be a really difficult one against a strong Ulster side but they produced a brilliant performance and so you never know I think we don't see them that often even in a lot of European games you see maybe two or three guys play that you think that's not their strongest team and they pull one or two internationals out of it put them on the bench but yeah I think going to Benetton

I think a lot of the players that played last week will be involved.

I think they might filter back in a couple of the internationals and put a few more that played last week, bring them out of the 23 and then obviously go as strong as they can next week.