Dream Team: Ian Whitten – Exeter and former Ulster & Ireland centre

1. Cian Healey – I played with him for Ireland U19s and he’s one of the best props in the loose in the world. His ball carrying is brilliant and he moves around the park really well.
2. Rory Best – A great leader for Ulster by example. His carrying and work rate over the ball is just brilliant.
3. John Afoa – It’s a toss-up between him and BJ Botha but the instant impact John had when he arrived at Ulster gives him the nod. Fine scrummager who’s skilful, too.
4. Jamie Cudmore – He gives a hard edge to the Clermont pack. A big cog in their team who does a lot of the dirty work for them. Enjoys starting a fight.
5. Tommy Hayes – The best captain I’ve played under. Another guy who loves the unseen work at the breakdown.
6. Stephen Ferris – He was a freak. He had a huge impact on games but such a shame injuries stopped his career. He could have been unbelievable.
7. Willie Faloon – It’s too tough to pick between Francois Louw and Steffon Armitage so I’ll go for my old mate Willie. We go way back to the Ulster academy and it’ll be good to catch up today at Galway. Very skilful and fights hard on the field.
8. Imanol Harinordoquy – Faced him with Ulster when he was at Biarritz and he was pretty good. His offloading was superb. Put his team on the front foot.
9. Ruan Pienaar – The best tackling scrum-half in the world. Always has his best games in the big games. You can always rely on him to step up when it matters.
10. Jonny Sexton – He was very hard to defend against when he was at Leinster alongside Gordon D’Arcy and BOD. Very smart and always knows what to do in different situations whether that’s unleash his backline or kick up the field.
11. Andrew Trimble – Very direct runner who picks great lines. He’s also very good under the high-ball and is great at coming into the line to stop the opposition in defence.
12. Wesley Fofana – When we played Clermont at Sandy Park a couple of seasons ago it was 6-6 at the break. But he was just untouchable in the second half and we lost by 40 points. Very quick and deceptively strong.
13. Jean de Villiers – He didn’t play long for Munster but he still had time to come to Ravenhill once and teach me a lesson or two. Reads the game very well.
14. Sitiveni Sivivatu – His fine touches to put his teammates into space are unbelievable.
15. Brendan Williams – It was impossible to tackle the former Treviso full-back. Very small but with great footwork. Very underrated because of where he was playing.