Boss wary of former mates

Isaac Boss has doffed his hat to Ulster and warned that Leinster will need to improve on Sunday’s Heineken Cup semi-final display against Clermont Auvergne if they are to deny his former teammates a first title in 13 years.

The Irish international scrum-half spent five years at Ravenhill and his bond with the northern province is strengthened due to the fact that his maternal grandmother’s family, the McAllisters, hail from the tiny village of Glenarm in Antrim.

He is still in touch with a number of the players he campaigned with in Belfast so he had a greater interest than most of those Leinster players who sat down in the team’s Regent Hotel in Bordeaux on Saturday to watch the province’s defeat of Edinburgh.